Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 45-48
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
- The description of Casey's changed attitude continues at the beginning of stanza 12. That "smile of Christian charity" from stanza 10 is long gone. Now his "teeth are clinched in hate."
- Casey takes out some of his hatred on poor, innocent home plate: "He pounds [it] with cruel violence."
- Does this beating of home plate remind you of anything from earlier in the poem? It should. In fact, it echoes that "beating" the "shore" took in stanza 9. It seems like Casey is channeling some of the crowd's anger and negativity. Deep breaths, Casey, deep breaths.
- It's too late, though—it looks like Casey has gone over to the dark side.
- The pitcher is ready to throw the third pitch. This time, instead of describing the ball with the poetized term "sphere," Thayer goes with plain ol' "ball." Things are starting to get real, folks.
- The stanza's last line is a real cliff-hanger. Thayer uses some anaphora ("And now," "and now," "and now") to really build the suspense.
- Casey takes a mighty swing (that's the "blow"). His swing is so powerful we can almost feel it: it "shatters" the air. But we don't know the result…
- Did he hit it? Is Casey a hero or a goat? We have to wait for the poem's final stanza to find out.