Layton's poem "Rhine Boat Trip" illustrates the time of horror during which the Holocaust was taking place. Any of what is told in the poem can be seen from the Rhine because of the borders it keeps. The Rhine is a river that flows from the North Sea to Switzerland, but a vast majority of it resides on or borders the country of Germany where the Holocaust took place during World War II.
             The poem, in prose, is and allegory of symbols, consisting of four stanzas with four lines each. It has no rhyme scheme and is comprised of run-ons. There is, also, no punctuation. Each stanza of the poem begins with beautiful imagery, telling of castles, vineyards, and the legendary Lorelei and contrasts with the representation of death. It seems as though Layton is trying to grasp the beauty of life before comparing it with the horror that is the death of the Jews during the Holocaust across to the poem's readers.
             The poem begins by telling of the castles along the Rhine River (assumed to be beautiful), which are haunted by the deceased Jewish mothers searching for their children lost during this time of despair called the Holocaust. Much of what took place during the Holocaust happened along the Rhine River, so it is possible that the lost souls took refuge in the mighty castles bordering the river. But, even the most innocent could not escape the horror that took place at the time.
             The second stanza speaks of clusters of grapes, which seem to symbolize the clusters of people that were captured and brought to the vineyards, or what may be concentration camps. The myriads of blinded eyes are all the Nazis who turned a blind eye and had no reservations as to human concern when it came to punishing millions of innocent Jewish people because they were different. The blind sun may represent the God of the heavens above. If there is a God (which there is in Jewish religion), he turned a blind eye to all of the inhumane...