I wandered lonely as a Cloud
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Summary
The speaker was walking around through the hills and valleys, but he felt all lonely and
mopey. Suddenly, as he passed a lake, he noticed a big group of yellow daffodils waving
in the breeze. This wasn't just some scattered patch of daffodils. We’re talking thousands
and thousands around this particular bay. And all these flowers were dancing.
Yes, the daffodils danced, and so did the waves of the lake. But the daffodils danced
better. The speaker’s loneliness was replaced by joy, but he didn't even realize what a gift
he has received until later. Now, whenever he’s feeling kind of blah, he just thinks of the
daffodils, and his heart is happily dancing.
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Lines 1-2
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,
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The speaker describes how he walked around and felt as lonely as a cloud. He
doesn’t say, "walked around," but uses the much more descriptive word
"wandered."
"Wandered" means roaming around without a purpose, like when you explore
something. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But in its metaphorical use,
"wandered" can mean feeling purposeless and directionless in general. As in, you
have questions like, "What’s the meaning of my life?"
The first concept that we want to take a look at is that the cloud is "lonely."
Asking questions about what this means will help us get into the poem.
Are clouds lonely? Well, maybe the ones that float about valleys ("vales") and hills
are lonely. It's more likely, the speaker is projecting his own loneliness on the
clouds. But that still doesn’t explain the strange image, because clouds usually
travel in groups. (Except in cartoons where you can have a single rain cloud
following Wiley E. Coyote around just to ruin his day.)
Maybe a cloud is lonely because it is so far above the rest of the world. Its
thoughts are just so "lofty," and maybe the speaker’s thoughts are, too.
Also, the cloud could be lonely because it floats over a natural landscape with no
people in it. Maybe the speaker has thought of hills and valleys because he
happens to be "wandering" through such a landscape.
These are some of the questions we’re hoping the poem will help us sort out after
this mysterious beginning.
Lines 3-4
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Daffodils;
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Suddenly ("all at once"), the speaker sees a group of daffodil flowers. We tend to
think of daffodils as "yellow," but he uses the more majestic-sounding "golden."
He calls them a "crowd," so they must be packed tightly together. Then he
elaborates on "crowd" by adding the noun "host." A host is just a big group.
Yes, "host" and "crowd" mean pretty much the same thing. Ah, but that’s where
the connotations come in, those vague associations that attach to certain words. A
"crowd" is associated with groups of people, while "host" is associated with
angels, because people often refer to a "host of angels." Coupled with the
description of their angelic "golden" color, we seem to be dealing with some very
special daffodils.
Lines 5-6
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
He sees the daffodils beside a lake and underneath some trees. It’s a breezy day,
and the flowers "flutter" and "dance" on their stems.
Maybe now is a good time to step outside the poem for just a second to note that
Wordsworth lived in a part of England known as the Lake District, which is filled
with lots of hills, valleys and, of course, lakes. We can assume he’s walking in a
fairly remote and wild part of the countryside.
Now, back to the poem. "Fluttering" suggests flight, which could bring us back to
the angels or even birds or butterflies. "Dancing" is something that usually only
humans do. The daffodils are given the qualities of humans and also of some kind
of otherworldly creatures, perhaps.
Lines 7-8
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
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The emphasizes the point that there are a whole lot of daffodils. More daffodils
than he has probably ever seen before. After all, these are flowers that usually
grow in scattered groups in the wild or in people’s well-tended gardens.
The flowers stretch "continuously," without a break, like the stars in the Milky
Way galaxy, each one gleaming like a star.
The comparison to stars provides new evidence that the speaker is trying to make
us think of angels or other heavenly beings.
Lines 9-10
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
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Like the Milky Way galaxy, the flowers are roughly concentrated in a line that
seems to stretch as far as the eye can see ("never-ending"). They flowers line the
shore ("margin") of a bay of the lake, which must be a relatively large lake.
If you’ve ever seen the Milky Way (or the photo in the link above), you know that
the galaxy appears to be a band that has more stars and a brighter appearance
than the night sky around it. It’s not a perfectly clear line, but more like a fuzzy
approximation of a line. We imagine the same effect with the flowers. It’s not as if
there are no flowers outside the shore of the lake, but most are concentrated on
the shore.
Lines 11-12
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
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The speaker takes in "ten thousand" dancing flowers at once. That’s a lot of
daffodils.
Wow, he’s fast at counting if he knows the number after only a quick glance. But,
of course, the speaker is not actually counting, but just guessing. (It's like when
you try to guess the number of gumballs in a jar.)
The flowers "toss their hands" while dancing to the wind. By "heads" we think he
means the part of the flower with the petals, the weight of which causes the rest
of the flower to bob.
"Sprightly" means happily or merrily. The word derives from "sprite," which
refers to the playful little spirits that people once thought inhabited nature.
"Sprites" are supernatural beings, almost like fairies.
Lines 13-14
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
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The waves also dance in the breeze, but the daffodils seem happier than the
waves. We know from Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal (see "In a Nutshell") that
the day that inspired this poem was a stormy one, so the waves on this mediumto-large sized lake must have been larger than usual. Maybe they were even
cresting into whitecaps.
The point is that the entire scene has suddenly been invested with a joyful humanlike presence. Since waves do not bring as much joy as the yellow flowers, the
flowers "out-did" the water with their happiness.
The waves "sparkle," which creates yet another association with the stars.
Everything seems to be gleaming and twinkling and shining and sparkling.
Lines 15-16
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
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The speaker reenters the poem. (We’ve haven’t seen you since the first line,
buddy.) Except he refers to himself in the first person, by his vocation, "a poet."
Despite his earlier loneliness, the speaker now can’t help but feel happy, or "gay,"
with such a beautiful vision to look at.
Or, as he puts at, with such joyful and carefree ("jocund") "company" to hang out
with. The flowers and waves feel like companions to him. They are all pals.
Group hug!
Lines 17-18
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
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The repetition of "gaze" tells us that he kept looking at the flowers for a long
time. It's as if the speaker enjoys looking at these daffodils at the time, but doesn’t
realize exactly how great of a gift he has just received with this vision.
Apparently, the speaker doesn't think that he fully appreciated the vision at the
time. This is a bit odd, because he seems to bereally enjoying those daffodils.
The word "wealth" expresses a more permanent kind of happiness. It also carries
a hint of money that does not quite fit with the supernatural language that has
come before.
Lines 19-20
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
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Now the speaker explains why the daffodils were such a great gift to him. He
moves suddenly into the future, back from the lake and the windy day. He’s
describing a habitual action, something he does often.
First, he sets the scene: he often sits on his couch, kind of feeling blah about life,
with no great thoughts and sights. Sometimes his mind is empty and "vacant," like
a bored teenager sitting on the sofa after school and trying to decide what to do.
At other times he feels "pensive," which means he thinks kind-of-sad thoughts.
You can’t be both "vacant" and "pensive" because one means "not thinking," and
the other means "thinking while feeling blue." But he groups the two experiences
together because both are vaguely unpleasant and dissatisfying.
Lines 21-22
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
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So, often when our speaker gets in these downer moods, the image of the
daffodils "flashes" through his mind.
The "inward eye" expresses what Wordsworth felt to be a deeper, truer spiritual
vision. A person cannot share his or her own spiritual vision completely with
others, and so it is a form of "solitude." But its truth and beauty make it "blissful."
Why does the speaker think of daffodils in exactly these moments? Maybe it's
because the contrast between their joy and his unhappiness is so striking.
Nonetheless, the vision is spontaneous, like a crack of lightning.
Lines 23-24
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils
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When the memory of the flowers and the lake flashes into his head, he feels
happy again. It’s almost like the same experience he had while "wandering"
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
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through nature at the beginning of the poem, when the real daffodils pushed the
loneliness out of his head.
The memory of the daffodils is as good as the real thing.
His heart is set to dancing, just like the flowers. He dances along "with" them –
they are his cheerful companions once again.
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold
William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold Summary
The speaker is telling us about the feeling he gets, has always gotten, and will
always get when he sees a rainbow in the sky: his heart rejoices. He says that if he
were ever to stop feeling this joy, he'd want to die.
He presents the paradox (contradictory statement) that the child is the father of
the man. In other words, our adult selves still contain the kernel of our childhood
selves. He wants his days to be, perhaps, like the days of a child, filled with—and
tied together by—a reverence for nature.
Line 1
My heart leaps up when I behold
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Officially, this poem is untitled, and so this is just the first line of the poem, not
the title. But it is important in setting up the rest of the poem.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Basically, the line shows us that the poem is going to be about something
that makes the speaker's heart leap up, presumably from joy. It's common to
say "my heart leapt," but think about this expression. The heart has no legs.
This makes it hard for it to literally leap on its own, so this is an example
of personification. We can infer that the heart will "leap," even if the speaker
is otherwise depressed. Perhaps he actually feels a kind of jolt in his chest.
We won't know why the speaker's heart is leaping up until we get to the next
line. The suspense is killing us! For now, though, this line break helps with the
rhythm of the poem and keeps us readers on our toes (for more on rhythm,
go check out "Form and Meter").
Keep in mind that "behold" means to see or observe something, not to hold
it. Behold is a pretty majestic word, so we suspect we're being set up for a
majestic sight…
Line 2
A rainbow in the sky:
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We find out what makes the speaker's heart leap up: a rainbow. Because of
the strategic line break, and the indentation, our hearts leap a little bit when
we read this line too—or at least our eyes do.
When you read this line, picture the last time you saw a rainbow and think
about how it made you feel. Was it like this guy?
Note that the line ends with a colon. This means that what follows is probably
related to it. Let's check it out…
Line 3
So was it when my life began;
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This line and the next few after it create a sense of time in the poem. Here
we learn that the speaker has had this feeling about rainbows ever since his
life began, which we take to mean his childhood, when he was just a wee
tyke.
Line 4
So is it now I am a man;
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This line continues the thought from the line before. Now we learn that the
speaker still gets excited by the sight of a rainbow, even as a mature adult.
We understand that the speaker is reflecting as an adult, but really, he's just
a kid at heart.
Lines 5-6
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
So we've heard about the thrill of rainbows in the speaker's past and present.
Now we hear about the future. The speaker is sure that when he grows old,
he will still be thrilled at the sight of a rainbow.
Then we get an indented line again, and we encounter a bit of a pause, at
least visually. At the end of this pause, the speaker lets us know that he is so
thrilled by rainbows that, if he ever lost this thrill, he would want to die.
Intense.
Whom is he talking to here, though, when he says "let me die"? God? The
Grim Reaper? Whomever he's addressing, they're not around in the poem.
This kind of address to an absent or abstract audience is what's called in the
biz an apostrophe.
This line is even followed by an exclamation point, so the speaker clearly
wants to emphasize it! For him, life without the capacity to appreciate
nature's beauty would not be worth living.
Line 7
The Child is father of the Man;
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Famous line alert! Here we move away from talking specifically about the
rainbow. This line is an example of a paradox—a contradictory statement.
It's definitely a paradox that a child could father a man, right? You'd think it
was the other way around.
Yet, in the context of this poem, the statement makes sense. The speaker
has shown us how important it is that something that thrilled him when he
was young continues to thrill him when he grows old. He is saying here that
his childhood formed who he is as an adult—his self, as a child, fathered, or
gave birth to, his adult self. It seems the speaker treasures the fact that he still
has a childlike capacity for wonder.
Also note the capitalization of the words "Child" and "Man" in this line. This is a
way to draw attention to the general truth of the line. It is meant to have a
wider meaning than just in the speaker's life. A rainbow brings out the child in
all of us.
Lines 8-9
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
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The speaker now expresses that he hopes nature will tie his days together
forever, as we can imagine a child's days would be tied together by playing
outside.
What do we mean by tied together? Well, they would all have the same
thing in common. Think about when you went to the same park to play,
every day of summer vacation. That experience tied your summer together.
Well, here the speaker wants all of his days to feature this same feeling of
wonder for the natural world.
We suspect that the speaker doesn't mean literal days here, but rather his
time on earth—his life.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
The glue, or rope, between these days is "natural piety." There are a few
different ways to interpret this phrase. Piety normally has a religious
connotation.
Someone who follows the laws of their religion and is very devoted to God
would be called pious. So we might interpret "natural piety" as a religion that
is natural, or not forced.
But there's not really much else about religion in this poem, so that
interpretation seems a little off. What if "natural" referred not to something
being genuine and sincere, but to the object of the piety? We think the
speaker wants his days to be tied together by reverence and piety toward
the natural world, rather than toward religion.
These two lines sort of put the rest of the poem in context. The rainbow,
which thrills the speaker throughout his life, is an example of a form of natural
piety, his sense of joy and wonder at the natural world. That sense is what he
hopes to experience for the rest of his days, his time on earth.
Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Kubla Khan Summary
This poem describes Xanadu, the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol emperor and
the grandson of Genghis Khan. The poem's speaker starts by describing the setting
of Emperor's palace, which he calls a "pleasure dome." He tells us about a river
that runs across the land and then flows through some underground caves and
into the sea. He also tells us about the fertile land that surrounds the palace. The
nearby area is covered in streams, sweet-smelling trees, and beautiful forests.
Then the speaker gets excited about the river again and tells us about the canyon
through which it flows. He makes it into a spooky, haunted place, where you might
find a "woman wailing for her demon lover." He describes how the river leaps and
smashes through the canyon, first exploding up into a noisy fountain and then
finally sinking down and flowing through those underground caves into the ocean
far away.
Stanza I (Lines 1-11) Summary
Lines 1-2
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
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Here's the famous opener.
This line gets a lot of work done quickly. It introduces us to the title character
(Kubla Khan), and begins to describe the amazing setting of the poem
(Xanadu).
That "stately pleasure dome decree" means that he had a really fancy and
beautiful palace built.
We want you to know right away that Coleridge is actually talking about a
real place and a real guy.
Kubla Khan was the grandson of the legendary Mongol conqueror Genghis
Khan, and he built a summer palace (called Xanadu, in English) in
Mongolia.
Marco Polo visited Xanadu, and helped to start the legend of its
magnificence.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
We're starting with actual history here, although by Coleridge's time Xanadu
is already a bit of a legend.
Keep this little historical nugget in mind, as you read. Does this feel like a real
place and a real person? Or does it seem completely imaginary? Maybe a
little of both?
Lines 3-5
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
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The speaker begins to describe the geography of Xanadu. He starts by
introducing us to the River Alph.
There's certainly no river in Mongolia by this name. Some scholars think that
this is an allusion to the river Alpheus, a river in Greece that was made
famous in classical literature.
The name "Alph" might also make us think of the Greek letter "Alpha" which is
the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and a symbol of beginnings.
These associations, and the fact that the river has a name at all, really make
the Alph stand out in the beginning of this poem.
Notice how Coleridge is already stepping away from history: he is
transforming this place, this person, and this story into his own creation.
"Kubla Khan" is definitely a poem as much about the journeys of the mind
and the imagination as it is about the real world.
If this is partly an imaginary landscape, how does the poem's speaker make
it look and feel? When he talks about "caverns measureless to man" we get
a sense that this landscape is both huge and unknowable.
That slightly spooky feeling continues when we get to the "sunless sea." That's
a pretty gloomy image to start out with, and it casts a shadow over these
first few lines. It also gives us a sense of being in an imaginary landscape,
because where else could a sea always be "sunless" and never bright or
cheerful, or any of the other things a sea can be?
Also, check out how much shorter line 5 is than all the others. In a poem
where all the lines have a carefully planned length, short lines stand out and
make us take notice. It makes this image just a little lonelier. It also makes this
line into more of a dead end, a stopping place, just like the sea is for the
River Alph.
Lines 6-11
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
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Now things become a little more cheerful.
The speaker takes us away from those gloomy, endless caverns, and tells us
a little bit about the gardens around the palace.
You might have noticed that the language gets fancy here. A "sinuous rill"
(line 3) is really just a twisty stream.
Coleridge often uses beautiful language to illustrate simple underlying
concepts.
Here, the speaker is setting up a contrast between the scary, strange
caverns and the pleasant, familiar space around the palace. He describes
how the palace is "girdled" (that just means surrounded) by walls and towers.
While the caverns were "measureless" (line 4) this space can be measured
very precisely at "twice five miles."
Everything about this place feels safe and happy. It's protected by the walls,
it's "fertile," the gardens are "bright," even the trees smell good ("incensebearing").
Even though the forests are "ancient" the speaker manages to make them
seem comforting too, since he tells us they are "enfolding sunny spots of
greenery" (line 11).
Notice how the idea of "enfolding" echoes the sense of "girdled." The forest
wraps around those little sunny spots and keeps them safe, just like the walls
wrap around the palace and keep it safe.
The natural world outside is wild and strange, but within the palace walls
things are peaceful and protected.
Stanza II (Lines 12-30) Summary
Lines 12-16
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
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Then, just like that, we get pulled back into the wild, slightly scary natural
world. The speaker takes us back to the river Alph, which is beginning to
seem almost like a character in this poem.
Xanadu is located in a valley surrounded by hills. The river cascades down
the side of one of these hills, cutting a "deep chasm," or canyon, through it.
The chasm cuts a path "athwart a cedarn cover" which means that the
entire hillside is covered in cedar trees. This river is violent and uncontrollable,
completely unlike those poky little rills we heard about it line eight.
The speaker seems to be pulled toward this river like a magnet. He could
have imagined himself sitting in those gardens, having someone feed him
grapes.
But it's the "romantic" chasm that appeals to him, and gives the poem its life.
Can you feel how excited the speaker is when he talks about the river?
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
One way Coleridge tips us off to his excitement is with all of those
exclamation points. They are all over the place in the first few lines of this
section.
Look at just two examples: "a cedarn cover!"(line 13), "a savage place!"(line
14). The exclamation points really make those images pop out at you, don't
they?
And how about that woman, the demon lover, and that waning moon?
The speaker is using them to let us know just how romantic and spooky the
chasm really is.
Our speaker wants us to imagine a woman, maybe even the ghost of a
woman, since she haunts this place.
Maybe she has been cursed, or has had a spell cast on her, and she
has fallen in love with an evil spirit.
If this woman wanted to scream about her terrible fate, to let out all her
sadness and her anger and her longing, where would she go? She'd go to a
place just like this: a lonely, wild canyon, where no one could hear her but
the "waning moon" (that just means the moon is getting smaller).
These images are really intense, and it gives us a little glimpse of a
whole new story.
The speaker isn't saying that any of these things are there in the poem; he's
saying that this is the kind of place where they would be at home.
He's coloring the mood of the landscape, not introducing new characters,
so don't let the details throw you off too much.
Remember that we're hearing a description of a dream or a vision.
Have you ever been at that moment where you're about to fall asleep and
something flashes across your mind? One minute it's there, and its really
intense, maybe as intense as this woman and her demon. Then the next
minute it's gone, just like the woman in this poem.
Lines 17-24
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
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More about this river. Seriously, he really likes it. Apparently it comes rushing
down the hillside at every moment ("momently") like a "fountain."
Of course, rivers don't usually stop moving, so Coleridge doesn't need to tell
us that it flows at every moment. However, he wants us to think of the river
not as something continuous, but as something that is created each
moment.
The speaker wants us to focus on the wild, rushing, violent excitement of the
water.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Coleridge and his poet-friends, the Romantics, loved scenes like this, where
the tremendous power of nature is unleashed and we get to watch.
Coleridge gets so carried away by this scene that he turns the earth into a
kind of "seething," "breathing" animal.
The rushing water becomes the sound of its "fast thick pants," as if the earth
were really tired from doing a lot of exercise. He really wants you to hear
and almost feel the rushing force of that river.
You can't just dip into an image like this. It's like trying to get a drink from a
fire hose.
Coleridge keeps this intensity up line after line, plunging us into the river
again and again.
After a while, this turns into a snowstorm of images and analogies.
Apparently the river is bouncing off the rocks, which reminds the speaker of
the clatter of hail, or grain raining down out of the air as it is being separated
from the chaff.
We could dig into each one of these images, and we definitely wouldn't
want to stop you from looking as closely as possible at every one of these
lines. But we think what the speaker is really after here is a feeling.
Do you feel the rushing of the river, the crash of the water against the rocks?
If yes, then the poem is doing its job. Each image is meant to drive home
that feeling of wild natural force.
In a sense these lines are like a symphony – a rush of feeling and sound and
excitement that's meant to pick you up and carry you along.
Lines 25-28
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
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Suddenly things calm down a little.
Our favorite river reaches the flat plain of the valley where Xanadu is
located, and it begins to "meander with a mazy motion" (line 25).
So, now we've gotten the whole story of the river, from the perspective of
someone in Xanadu.
The first glimpse is of the river rushing down a deep canyon cut into a
wooded hillside. The water is moving fast and furious, almost like a waterfall,
but not quite so steep. It bounces off rocks and creates a lot of big ruckus.
The river then flattens out and turns into a proper river, flowing gently
through Xanadu for five miles until it reaches a bunch of caves or "caverns."
Nobody knows how deep these caverns are. They are so huge you couldn't
possibly measure them. But we do know that they seem to contain an
underground ocean, into which the river flows.
See all those "m" sounds? We call that repetition of the first sound in a word
"alliteration."
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Coleridge has gotten us all worked up, and now, to show us he can, he
slows it all down.
One minute the river's making a "fast thick pant," then it's lazy and murmuring
in the woods and dales.
You know how some pop songs start out quiet, build up until they are fast
and loud and then quiet down again?
That's what's happening here. The speaker took us up to peak, and now he's
taking us down again, circling back to the quiet, spooky images that started
the poem.
To bring this idea home, the speaker repeats the phrase "caverns
measureless to man" that we first heard in line 4. Remember that "sunless
sea" in line 5? It's back too, this time as a "lifeless ocean" (line 28).
Different words, same gloomy idea.
Lines 29-30
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
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Coleridge could have ended the poem there, with that "lifeless ocean."
In that case, it would have been almost perfectly symmetrical.
But what fun would that be? This is supposed to an intense vision, after all.
Plus, what about Kubla, our title character? It almost seems like Coleridge
has forgotten him.
Well now he's back, in the last two lines of this section. As the poem's pace
slows down, the "tumult" of the river becomes an echo of the intense rush we
just felt.
Like us, Kubla listens from a distance, and what does he hear? "Ancestral
voices prophesying war" (line 30).
This is Genghis Khan's grandson, after all, so he probably spent a lot of time
thinking about war, even when he wasn't listening to rushing rivers.
This new image takes us away from the river, and into the even wilder
second half of the poem. Think this is all a little strange already? Just wait!
Sonnet: To The River Otter
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of Childhood! oft have ye beguil'd
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!
"Sonnet: To the River Otter" (1793)
Summary
The unnamed speaker of this sonnet returns to a brook near his rural birthplace and
reflects on the “sweet scenes of childhood.” Coleridge claims that he has never
forgotten the intricacies of the brook and that as an adult, he can still clearly
picture the brook in his mind. Coleridge further says that recalling such
fond childhood memories of his rural home only make him long more for those
years of carefree innocence.
Analysis
In “Sonnet: To the River Otter,” Coleridge explores the most familiar themes in his
poetry: the adult’s longing for childhood innocence; the connection between
pastoral life and happiness, particularly childhood happiness; and the power of
the imagination. In the sonnet, the speaker’s imagination transports him back to his
beloved childhood memories and restores his intimacy with nature.
The words "Dear native brook!" (line 1) indicate that the speaker is remembering a
stream near his childhood home, placing the poetic memory squarely in the
halcyon days of youth from the outset. Although "many various-fated years have
past" since he has been near this brook, the speaker still remembers it clearly and
with fondness. He longs for the time he used to skip "the smooth stone along thy
breast" (line 4), connecting the brook to the feminine form of nature which he sees
as both nurturing and alluring. He echoes this sense of enchantment in lines 12-13,
wherein the visions of childhood the brook offers "oft have...beguiled/Lone
manhood's cares." While not necessarily a strong sexual image, Coleridge still
leaves the hint of sexual duality in the male speaker and the female brook; he also
goes another direction, invoking the nurturing spirit of Nature as mother (although
the act of the child skipping stones across the brook's "breast" seems to indicate
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
that, to the child at least, the femininity of nature is neither sexual nor maternal, but
simply there).
The visions of the speaker's childhood are"so deep imprest" (line 5) that he cannot
close his eyes without vividly replaying a scene from his youth near the brook within
his mind's eye (lines 8-11). What stands out to him are the colors associated with
the brook: the "tints" of the water (line 8), the grey willows along the side of the
brook (line 9), and the "various dyes" of the sediments that have collected along
the stream bed (line 10). It is the color of childhood that Coleridge wants to recall,
but in all that the only color he actually names, grey, is the color of old age and
melancholy. He realizes that the act of longing for one's childhood is in itself tinged
with despair, for to long for youth is to admit that one no longer possesses it.
It is important to note that the speaker finds pleasure in the constancy of the
features of the brook. The speaker’s admiration of this constancy could reflect his
own desire that human life could possess such a constancy. During a person’s
lifetime, he or she grows from being “a careless child” into dealing with “many
various-fated years” as an adult.
To Nature
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1634-1693)
It may indeed be fantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.
Summary
To Nature, a beautiful and meaningful poem written by an English poet, literary
critic and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) says the difference or
the similarity between nature and human.
The word created things denotes in the second line of the poem means all
creature and plats in the universe.
The poet is having deep, heartfelt and inward joy. This expression shows the intense
and personal experience of the poet.
In the poem, the poet says it may indeed be phantasy. But I think, The experience
of the poet was not only a phantasy because the poet experiences the presence
of god in the nature.
The third and fourth line says the poet is tracing for love and earnest piety in the
nature around him. If we can find beauty in everything we will gifted with joy.
The expression "let it be" suggests the belief of poet.
The eighth line denotes that some people may ridicule the poet's ideas, but he is
not worried of afraid. The poet is thinking that the nature is his place for worship.
The field is altar, the sky is the dome, the wild flowers make the incenses. The poet
is saying the sacrifice is poor because he is not the real priest.
Here the poet is the priest of the nature. A poet will find the beauty in everything.
This is the common between the poet and the priest.
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience)
William Blake
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"-"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience) Summary
The speaker sees a child covered in soot, lying alone in the snow. Good start. The
child tells him that his parents, who have forced him into chimney sweeping, are
praying at a nearby church. The end.
Lines 1-2
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
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Okay, okay, so this isn't exactly a sentence. Still, we can work with it. These
lines seem to be an observation.
The speaker sees a little black thing in the snow. And that little black thing is
sadly crying "'weep! 'weep!"
That's all well and good, but what in the world is this little black thing? A
person? An animal? We're gonna go ahead and guess that it's the subject
(and title) of the poem—a chimney sweeper.
That also means that this little black thing is a young boy, because in Blake's
day, that's who swept chimneys.
The fact that this little guy is referred to as a thing is telling. The speaker
doesn't even see him as a person. Harsh.
The chimney sweeper probably looks black because he's covered in soot.
There are more than a few things we can notice about these lines,
poetically speaking.
First, there's the stark contrast between the soot-covered boy and the pure
white snow he's sitting in. That's quite an image.
Then there's the rhyme—snow and woe. That's a perfect rhyme, nice and
neat, and since these two lines go together, we call this a rhyming couplet.
Lines 3-4
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"-"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
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Instead of leaving the poor kid alone, the speaker asks him a question. He
seems a bit concerned for the little guy, because he wants to know where
his parents are.
But he's also more than a little abrupt. He practically demands the kid tell
him what's up ("Say!")
The chimney sweeper says that his parents have gone to church.
And there's that perfect rhyme again. Say and way. Look out for this pattern
of rhymes to continue—or be broken.
Line 5-8
"Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
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This little chimney sweeper doesn't stop there. Actually, he's quite the talker.
Now he's going to tell us his whole story.
Because he was happy, smiled a lot, and had fun in the great outdoors, his
parents dressed him up in clothes of death and taught him to sing sad notes.
Okay, so this isn't quite literal, right? We mean, what are clothes of death?
That's gotta be a metaphor for something.
Does this refer to a chimney sweeper's uniform? An outfit one might wear in
a coffin? The two, for Blake, are synonymous (because chimney sweeping
was dangerous, led to the death of one's childhood, etc.).
Did the parents literally teach their child to "sing the notes of woe"? Probably
not. This is also a metaphor for the way his parents forced him into this terrible
job. And that terrible job has made him cry, so in a way, his parents are
responsible for his woe.
There are some interesting causal relationships going on here, aren't there?
Apparently this kid's parents made him miserable by forcing him into this
chimney sweeping job because he was so happy. What's up with that?
There are two ways to read this: (1) His parents thought something along the
lines of, oh, our boy's doing fine, so why don't we put him to work? Or (2) Our
boy is just too happy. Let's give him a rough job to toughen him up a bit.
Either way, it doesn't sound like the best parenting in the world. This motherfather duo is responsible for their son's suffering.
And finally, we've got some more rhymes going on here. Only now instead
of rhyming couplets, we've got an alternating rhyme scheme of ABAB.
Heath rhymes with death (well, close enough), and snow once again
rhymes with woe.
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Lines 9-10
"And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
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At the beginning of the final stanza, the chimney sweeper continues his sad
story.
He says that his parents think they haven't done him any harm because he
still happy, and dances, and sings.
The chimney sweeper doesn't seem very happy, or very tuneful; maybe his
parents don't realize that his "song" is made up of the notes of woe.
Since these lines don't rhyme, we can probably bet that this stanza will follow
the ABAB rhyme scheme set up in the second stanza.
Lines 11-12
And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,
Who make up a heaven of our misery."
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The chimney sweeper again tells us that his parents have gone to church,
where they "praise God and his priest and king."
Well that sounds nice enough, right?
Right. But then he goes on to tell this passer-by (our speaker) that this
dynamic trio makes up "a heaven of our misery."
Okay, that doesn't sound so nice. But what does the phrase "make up a
heaven of our misery" really mean?
Does it mean that God and his priest and king make the chimney sweeper's
misery a little less miserable by adding a dose of heaven to it? We don't think
so.
Or does it mean that God, his priest, and his king enjoy themselves at the
kids' expense? In other words—they're all happy-go-lucky while the kid toils in
their chimneys?
Or does it mean that God, his priest, and his king think there's a heaven
because they assume that these little chimney-sweeping kiddos are totally
happy with their lousy lot (maybe because they dance and sing), when in
fact they're totally miserable?
It's a tricky line, for sure, but in any case, one thing is certain: this little boy is
implicating God, the church, and the government in his suffering. And his
parents, too, for that matter.
He may be a kid, but he definitely has some strong opinions. And we think
he might be acting as William Blake's mouthpiece here. Blake uses the kid's
words to blame these social institutions—religion, the church, government,
family—for treating these children as slaves.
The Tyger
William Blake
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Tyger Summary
"The Tyger" contains only six stanzas, and each stanza is four lines long. The first and
last stanzas are the same, except for one word change: "could" becomes "dare."
"The Tyger" is a poem made of questions. There are no less than thirteen question
marks and only one full sentence that ends with a period instead of a question
mark. Addressing "The Tyger," the speaker questions it as to its creation – essentially:
"Who made you Mr. Tyger?" "How were you made? Where? Why? What was the
person
or
thing
like
that
made
you?"
The poem is often interpreted to deal with issues of inspiration, poetry, mystical
knowledge, God, and the sublime (big, mysterious, powerful, and sometimes
scary. Ever heard the phrase, "To love God is to fear him"? That’s talking about
something sublime). But it’s not about anyone thing: this is William Blake.
For better or worse, there really is no narrative movement in "The Tyger": nobody
really does anything other than the speaker questioning "the Tyger." The first stanza
opens the central question: "What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful
symmetry?" The second stanza questions "the Tyger" about where he was created,
the third about how the creator formed him, the fourth about what tools were
used. The fifth stanza goes on to ask about how the creator reacted to his creation
("the Tyger") and who exactly was this creator. Finally, the sixth restates the central
question
while raising the
stakes;
rather
than
merely
question
what/who could create the Tyger, the speaker wonders: who dares.
Lines 1-2
Tyger Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
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These first lines set up to whom the poem is addressed: the "Tyger."
It begins with the repetition of the name ("Tyger, tyger"). The repetition
creates a chant-like mood to the whole poem, which contributes to the
mysteriousness. Reading it, you can’t help but get the feeling this poem is
about way more than the biggest cat in the world.
What is this about "burning bright, / In the forests of the night"? Tigers don’t
burn. When you see crazy or unexpected metaphors like this –
which always happens with Blake – slow down and chew on them for a
minute.
"Burning bright" may describe the appearance of the Tyger (tigers have fiery
orange fur), or it may on a deeper level describe a kind of energy or power
that this Tyger has.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
The Tyger's presence in "the forests of the night" further increases the mystery
and power of the creature – it’s elusive, while at the same time burning with
some sort of inner force.
Lines 3-4
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
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These lines introduce the central question of the poem: what "immortal"
being or force is able to contain or produce the Tyger’s sublime form? Big
stuff, we know.
The "immortal hand or eye," symbols of sight and creation, immediately
conjure references to a creative God (in pretty much all cases with Blake,
"God" refers to the Christian God). If this is so, then questioning whether
God could do anything is a direct attack on the omnipotence of such a
God.
To "frame," here, is probably to contain, kind of like putting a picture in a
frame. When you frame something, the boundaries are clear, the object
isn’t going anywhere.
"Fearful symmetry," is a very nuanced quality to have. "Fearful" references
the scariness of a tiger, but also alludes to the sublime. The sublime is an old
notion of really big, powerful, mysterious stuff that terrifies us because it’s big,
powerful and mysterious. The first BIG example that should come to mind:
God, or the divine (that stuff is big and powerful and mysterious).
Symmetry is a classical quality of the divine, as well as the defining factor of
artistic beauty.
So, there are lots of doors open with the first stanza. Just hold on, it’ll be OK. If
there is one thing Blake does, it’s open doors, but it can be hard to keep
track of where each one might lead as you read through the poem.
Lines 5-6
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
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These lines ask where the Tyger was created, and also add to the
growing image the reader has of the Tyger.
The use of "distant deeps or skies" seems to refer to an otherworldly ("distant")
place, perhaps a kind of Hell ("deeps") or Heaven ("skies").
The metaphor of "burning" from line 1 returns with the burning "fire" of the
Tyger’s eyes, adding to the power and fearfulness of the image.
Lines 7-8
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
These lines are where a lot of people just totally get knocked off the tracks.
Who the heck is "he"? It may be God, it may be the poet, it may be the
artist, it’s unclear – what "he" is for sure, is the creator of this Tyger. The Tyger –
that we know is a big, powerful, mysterious thing – must have a pretty big,
powerful, mysterious creator.
The "hand" returns from line 3 as well as "fire," and the image of flying on
wings is added, alluding to supernatural power, but not necessarily a divine
one.
Also, the notion of daring is introduced, which will be echoed in the last
stanza.
Lines 9-12
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
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This stanza continues the questioning of who/what the creator of the Tyger is
(notice the "And" continues the thought from the previous stanza).
What "shoulder" roughly means what kind of bodily strength could create
the Tyger ("twist the sinews of thy heart").
What "art" refers to the skill that could put the Tyger all together.
Lines 11 and 12 are more mysterious, in that they're really vague. From earlier
in the poem we know that hands and eyes frame (stanza 1), hands seize
(line 8), shoulders twist (lines 9 and 10), but what do these hands and feet do
after the heart begins to beat? Whose hands and feet? Again, not sure.
Whatever the answer, the use of "dread" increases the same big, powerful,
mysterious quality known as "the sublime."
Lines 13-16
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
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These lines further question how the Tyger was created.
Blake uses the metaphor of the blacksmith, who forms metal with a hammer,
furnace (fire), and anvil.
The stanza is very rhythmic, adding further to the chant-like quality that we
talked about in lines 1-2.
We also get the sense that the pace and volume is picking up, since the
questions are now coming faster and Blake uses his first exclamation point.
Lines 17-20
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
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These lines are the most clearly "Christian" of the poem.
Lines 17 and 18 are a bit ambiguous, and may refer to the casting down of
the angels after Satan rebelled against God (see Paradise Lost).
The same "he" reappears here as in line 7, but in a much more Christian
setting, more closely referencing God than the other stanza.
The "Lamb" is a traditional Christian symbol for Jesus Christ(who was "made"
by God, though that is a big can of worms). It also refers back to Blake’s
poem "The Lamb" in Songs of Innocence (see "In a Nutshell" for more on "The
Lamb").
Lines 21-24
Tyger Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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The final stanza echoes the first, but why?
Along with the rhyming and chant-like rhythm, the repetition may be like a
refrain, like song’s chorus.
The repetition is also a very clever device to get us to notice the one
change that is made to the stanza: "could" is switched to "dare."
Now, instead of questioning the ability of the creator, Blake questions
his nerve. Like when you triple-dog dare someone, Blake seems to challenge
the courage of whatever/whoever tried or tries to contain ("frame") the big,
powerful, mysteriousness of the Tyger.
CRADLE SONG
William Blake (1757-1827)
LEEP, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.
As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart doth rest.
O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.
Summary
This poem is meant to be a lullaby sung by a mother to her child. The
accompanying plate depicts the mother watching over her newborn under she
soft shading of a large tree. Just like the last word in the title, "song," and the simple
'aabb ccdd eeff ...' rhyming scheme, it is fair to assume that Blake intended this
lyric to be sung.
On a deeper level, Blake is reaching out to glorify the natural world, within which
we live, in the face of a more subjective heaven, where the Gods reside. There is a
revealing humanistic 'heavenly' innocence and purity that the mother praises in
the child who holds "secret joys and secret smiles." Notice how the "infant's smiles
and wiles" is capable of beguiling both heaven and earth alike.
Analysis
"Cradle Song" is often praised as a perfect balance between thought and
emotion, capturing the mother's joy and love for her child while at the same time
expressing her largest fears and meditation on the child's future role in man's world.
The ending of the fourth stanza is perhaps the strongest example of the mother's
fear, certainty, and gloom that one day her child's "little heart [will] wake" and
when that happens, "the dreadful lightnings break." Blake's repeated theme of
passing from innocence to experience is obvious in this sweet lullaby.
The speaker is at peace with her child and situation at the beginning of the poem.
The personification placed on "little sorrows" who "sit and weep" during the night is
representative of the peace found in night, the period of innocence in Blake's
constant-running imagery of oppositions between night and day, and suggests the
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passing of the child from one world (harmful earth) to the next (safe heaven). But
notice when morning breaks in line 10, the tranquility is "stolen" from the child, and
"cunning wiles" begin to creep into the child's heart (the mother even refers to the
morning as "dreadful").
Overall, the poem can be read as a metaphor for the mother's awareness and
inability to alter or stop her child from growing up in this world and losing all of
his/her innocence. The first half of the poem is a snapshot of how peaceful and
joyful the sleeping babe is, but "youthful harvesting" is inevitable, and the mother is
left saddened at the fact that while her child may "beguile both heaven and
earth" at the moment, it is only a temporary serenity, and it will not be long before
all purity and innocence is lost.
Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Canto I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O Thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
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Eng 332
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!
Ode to the West Wind Summary
The speaker of the poem appeals to the West Wind to infuse him with a new spirit
and a new power to spread his ideas. In order to invoke the West Wind, he lists a
series of things the wind has done that illustrate its power: driving away the autumn
leaves, placing seeds in the earth, bringing thunderstorms and the cyclical "death"
of
the
natural
world,
and
stirring
up
the
seas
and
oceans.
The speaker wishes that the wind could affect him the way it does leaves and
clouds and waves. Because it can’t, he asks the wind to play him like an
instrument, bringing out his sadness in its own musical lament. Maybe the wind can
even help him to send his ideas all over the world; even if they’re not powerful in
their own right, his ideas might inspire others. The sad music that the wind will play
on him will become a prophecy. The West Wind of autumn brings on a cold,
barren period of winter, but isn’t winter always followed by a spring?
Lines 1-5
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes:
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The speaker appeals to the West Wind four times in this first canto, or section,
of the poem. (We don’t find out what he’s actually asking the wind to do for
him until the end of the canto.)
Lines 1-5 are the first appeal, in which the speaker describes the West Wind
as the breath of Autumn.
Like a magician banishing ghosts or evil spirits, the West Wind sweeps away
the dead leaves. These dead leaves are multicolored, but not beautiful in
the way we usually think of autumn leaves – their colors are weird and
ominous and seem almost diseased (like "pestilence-stricken multitudes").
Lines 5-8
O Thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
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The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until


The speaker appeals to the West Wind a second time.
This time, the West Wind is described as carrying seeds to their grave-like
places in the ground, where they’ll stay until the spring wind comes and
revives them. The wind burying seeds in the ground is like a charioteer driving
corpses to their graves.
Lines 8-12
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:



Once the West Wind has carried the seeds into the ground, they lie there all
winter, and then are woken by the spring wind.
Shelley thinks of the spring wind as blue (or, to be specific, "azure").
The spring wind seems to be the cause of all the regeneration and flowering
that takes place in that season. It blows a "clarion" (a kind of trumpet) and
causes all the seeds to bloom. It fills both "plain and hill" with "living hues and
odours." It also opens buds into flowers the way a shepherd drives sheep.
Lines 13-14
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!



The speaker appeals to the West Wind twice more, describing it as a "Wild
Spirit" that’s everywhere at once.
The West Wind is both "Destroyer and Preserver"; it brings the death of winter,
but also makes possible the regeneration of spring.
Now we find out (sort of) what the speaker wants the wind to do: "hear, oh,
hear!" For the moment, that’s all he’s asking – just to be listened to. By the
wind.
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
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Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandias Summary
The speaker describes a meeting with someone who has traveled to a place
where ancient civilizations once existed. We know from the title that he’s talking
about Egypt. The traveler told the speaker a story about an old, fragmented statue
in the middle of the desert. The statue is broken apart, but you can still make out
the face of a person. The face looks stern and powerful, like a ruler. The sculptor
did a good job at expressing the ruler’s personality. The ruler was a wicked guy, but
he
took
care
of
his
people.
On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an inscription in which the ruler
Ozymandias tells anyone who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around
and see how awesome I am!” But there is no other evidence of his awesomeness
in the vicinity of his giant, broken statue. There is just a lot of sand, as far as the eye
can see. The traveler ends his story.
Lines 1-2
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said...


The poem begins immediately with an encounter between the speaker and
a traveler that comes from an "antique land."
We're not sure about this traveler. He could be a native of this "antique"
land, or just a tourist returning from his latest trip.


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We don't know where this encounter is taking place; is it on the highway? On
a road somewhere? In London? Maybe if we keep reading we'll find out.
"Antique" means something really old, like that couch at your grandmother's
or the bunny ears on top of your television. The traveler could be coming
from a place that is ancient, almost as if he were time-traveling. Or he could
just be coming from a place that has an older history, like Greece, Rome,
or ancient Egypt.
Lines 2-4
…Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies…




Here the traveler begins his speech. He tells the speaker about a pair of
stone legs that are somehow still standing in the middle of the desert.
Those legs are huge ("vast") and "trunkless." "Trunkless" means "without a
torso," so it's a pair of legs with no body.
"Visage" means face; a face implies a head, so we are being told that the
head belonging to this sculpture is partially buried in the sand, near the legs.
It is also, like the whole statue, "shatter'd."
The image described is very strange: a pair of legs, with a head nearby.
What happened to the rest of the statue? War? Natural disaster?
Napoleon?
Lines 4-6
…whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read





The traveler now gives a fuller description of the "shatter'd visage" lying in the
sand.
As it turns out, the "visage" (or face) isn't completely "shatter'd" because one
can still see a "frown," a "wrinkled lip," and a "sneer."
We still don't know whom this statue represents, but we do know that he was
upset about something because he's frowning and sneering. Maybe he
thinks that the sneering makes him look powerful. It conveys the "cold
command" of an absolute ruler. He can do what he wants without thinking
of other people. Heck, he probably commanded the sculptor to make the
statue.
After briefly describing the "visage" (3), the lines shift our attention away from
the statue to the guy who made the statue, the "sculptor."
"Read" here means "understood" or "copied" well. The sculptor was pretty
good because he was able to understand and reproduce exactly – to
"read" – the facial features and "passions" of our angry man. The sculptor
might even grasp things about the ruler that the ruler himself doesn't
understand.


T. Enas Fawzy
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The poem suggests that artists have the ability to perceive the true nature of
other people in the present and not just in the past, with the benefit of
hindsight.
"Tell" is a cool word. The statue doesn't literally speak, but the frown and
sneer are so perfectly rendered that they give the impression that they are
speaking, telling us how great the sculptor was.
Lines 7-8
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed







The poem now tells us more about the "passions" of the face depicted on
the statue.
Weirdly, the "passions" still survive because they are "stamp'd on these lifeless
things." The "lifeless things" are the fragments of the statue in the desert.
"Stamp'd" doesn't refer to an ink-stamp, but rather to the artistic process by
which the sculptor inscribed the "frown" and "sneer" on his statue's face. The
word could also make you think of the ruler's power. Had he wanted to, he
could have stamped out any of his subjects who offended him.
"Mock'd" has two meanings in this passage. It means both "made fun of" and
"copied," or "imitated." "Hand" is a stand-in for the sculptor. So the sculptor
both belittled and copied this man's passions.
"The heart that fed" is a tricky phrase; it refers to the heart that "fed" or
nourished the passions of the man that the statue represents. But if you think
these lines are unclear, you're right. Even scholars have trouble figuring out
what they mean.
The passions not only "survive"; they have also outlived both the sculptor
("the hand that mock'd") and the heart of the man depicted by the statue.
Note the contrast between life and death. The fragments of the statue are
called "lifeless things," the sculptor is dead, and so is the statue's subject. The
"passions" though, still "survive."
Lines 9-11
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"




The traveler tells us about an inscription at the foot of statue which finally
reveals to us whom this statue represents.
It is "Ozymandias," the figure named in the title. "Ozymandias" was one of
several Greek names for Ramses II of Egypt. For more, see "What's Up with
the Title."
The inscription suggests that Ozymandias is arrogant, or at least that he has
grand ideas about his own power: he calls himself the "king of kings."
Ozymandias also brags about his "works." Maybe he's referring to the famous
temples he constructed at Abu Simbel or Thebes. He could also be calling

T. Enas Fawzy
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attention to the numerous colossal statues of him, such as the one described
in this poem.
Ozymandias's speech is ambiguous here. On the one hand he tells the
"mighty" to "despair" because their achievements will never equal his "works."
On the other hand, he might be telling the "mighty" to "despair" as a kind of
warning, saying something like "Don't get your hopes up guys because your
statues, works, political regimes, etc. will eventually be destroyed or fade
away, with nothing to recall them but a dilapidated statue half-buried in the
sand."
12-14
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.






After the traveler recites the inscription, he resumes his description of the
statue and the surrounding area.
We are reminded again that "nothing" remains besides the head, legs, and
pedestal; as if we didn't know the statue has been destroyed, the traveler
tells us again that it is a "colossal wreck."
The very size of the statue – "colossal" – emphasizes the scope of
Ozymandias's ambitions as well; it's almost as if because he thinks he's the
"king of kings" (10), he also has to build a really big statue.
To complement the "decay" of the statue, the traveler describes a desolate
and barren desert that seems to go on forever: the "sands stretch far away."
The statue is the only thing in this barren, flat desert. There was probably
once a temple or something nearby, but it's long gone. The "sands" are
"lone," which means whatever else used to be "beside" the statue has been
destroyed or buried.
Several words in these lines start with the same letter; for example "besides,"
"boundless," and "bare"; "remains" and "round"; "lone" and "level"; "sands" and
"stretch." Using multiple words with the same initial letter is called alliteration.
For more, see "Sound Check."
Percy Shelley
Love's Philosophy
The Fountains mingle with the Rivers
And the Rivers with the Oceans,
The winds of Heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
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Eng 332
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? --
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother,
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
Summary
Loves Philosophy is purely a romantic poem written by one of the famous romantic
poets, Percy Bysshe Shelly.
Shelly is best known for his classics in English Language. His poems were all classic
and well explained and many of them were made plays. But unfortunately he did
not live to see or hear his success.
His works were all well renowned and had all well in dept meaning to it. During his
education period, he was not very happy as his idealism and controversial
philosophies were working out and at those times he did write many poems. For
this Shelly was expelled from school as he expressed his atheistic views. Shelly had
a second marriage with Percy and he felt initially it was a perfect match as they
had a love in writing novels and poems.
This poem which describes about ones feelings for Love was beautifully penned
down. After reading this poem, it leaves behind one with the feeling of being
loved and to love once again. The words that have been used are beautifully
picked to express the poet’s feelings and would make the reader also have a feel
for the love.
The poem has a resemblance to his life where, in his real life he was not a winner in
love and marriages. His first marriage was not satisfactory and later on he remarried and again was not that content. With such kind of life situations, the
carving for love has made him put out his feelings into this beautiful poem.
T. Enas Fawzy
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The first stanza clearly explains that each living object is associated with another,
or each living being is meant for another. However the last line says, why not me to
you? This shows that he did have a vacuum in life and could not express his feel of
love or have never felt being loved. It depicts not only his life, but for any person
that carves for being loved.
The second stanza, again explains that the mountains and waves, the sunlight and
moonbeams all kisses their loved, but how will they all be worth, if you don’t kiss
me? A wonderful way of expressing the feel of Love is what exactly this poem is all
about. Shelly is great poet, who has put his thought and feel for love in such a
beautiful manner, that no person who has read this would ever turn back to think,
how to love to be loved!!!
When I have fears that I may cease to be
John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
When I have fears that I may cease to be Summary
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Keats' speaker contemplates all of the things that he wants in life: namely, success,
fame, and love. C'mon, is that too much to ask?
Well, as it turns out, the speaker is pretty sure that it is. See, he doesn't want just any
old fame. He wants Fame. Capital letters and neon lights. (Okay – so they didn't
have neon lights in the early 19th century, but you get our point.) He doesn't want
just any old love, either. He wants that soul-stripping, earth-shaking, sky-tumbling
once-in-a-lifetime sort of rapture. To sum it all up, he wants to be the star of pretty
much every romantic movie ever.
Here's the problem: the speaker is also pretty sure that his life will end long before
he'll be able to achieve any of these goals. That's why his description of his desires
is so tinged with desperation – chances are, his life will be over far, far too quickly.
This poem charts both the speaker's desires and his despair (in that order). Come
to think of it, the poem doesn't exactly end on a happy note. But hey, what's a
good melodrama without a little tragedy?
Lines 1-2
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,








Wow. Keats sure doesn't pull his punches. This poem starts out by laying it on
the line: what would happen if I died today? (Take a second and think
about that. Chances are that it doesn't inspire all that many happy
thoughts.)
Come to think of it, how often do you think about how (and when) you're
going to die? Nowadays, we'd call that morbid. In fact, we might even send
you to a counselor to make sure that you're not about to commit suicide.
Death just isn't one of those topics that healthy people spend all that much
time worrying about, right?
Well, that wasn't true for the Romantics. See, back in the early 19th century,
everyone who was anyone (literarily speaking) did a good bit of thinking
about their own mortality. It helped to put things into perspective: big, scary
world vs. little, mortal human being. That's just how things were.
Acknowledging your mortality doesn't make you any less fearful, though.
That's precisely the problem that sets this poem in motion. See, Keats knows
that he's got quite a bit to say. In fact, his brain is "teeming" with the poems
that he has yet to write.
The first two lines of this poem set up a hypothetical world. Keats isn't
dead yet (although, eerily enough, he will be within a few years). His poem,
however, is based on two certainties:
1. He WILL have lots of important stuff to write.
2. He WILL die before he has a chance to write it all.
Directing the reader towards two things that haven't yet happened (and
which will, of course, cancel each other out) places us in a very weird
T. Enas Fawzy
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situation. We're deep inside a very contradictory imagination – that of the
poet himself.
Lines 3-4
Before high piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;





Ah, metaphor. But what does it mean?
Here's the rough translation: If I die before I have written lots of books (that's
the "high piled books," in case you were wondering) which hold my words
like a grain silo (that's the "garner") holds ripe grain…
Keats had some seriously flowery language up his sleeves. If you're a fan,
don't worry. Keats has lots more to come.
Why play around with all of this metaphorical language? Well, some
interesting things happen when Keats starts to compare his poetry (or, more
broadly, the products of his imagination) to other things. The image he
chooses refers straight back to nature: his poems are like harvested wheat.
They're the natural product of a fruitful earth (or, er… his brain). It's almost like
Keats' mind becomes an natural element in this particular metaphor.
Look a little bit closer, though, and something strange starts to occur.
Harvested grain is, well, dead. It's not the actual living plant. It's that dry,
brittle husk containing the seeds of future growth. Published poems, to
follow this metaphor, aren't alive in the same way that the poet's brain is.
Just like grain, though, it's the published poems that bring in the bucks. (After
all, who ever head of paying good money for a wheat plant?)
Lines 5-6
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,



Now Keats' speaker is gazing up at the night sky – and finding in the clouds
all of the "symbols" of high romance.
Wait a second… love in the clouds? Well, this particular kind of romance isn't
exactly your run of the mill everyday love. It's elevated ("high") romance. If
we were feeling flowery, we'd call it celestial. Or heavenly. It's the stuff of
chivalric legend – the sweeping tales of romance and brave knights in
shining armor and all that fine stuff than never really seems to happen on a
first date. (Or, come to think of it, any date at all. Sigh.)
We're not saying that Keats' version of romance is impossible. It's just pretty
clear that he sees the world through some pretty heavily rose-colored
glasses. After all, he's not looking for love from the people around him.
Nope. He's looking up in the clouds. (And when was the last time that you
found good lovin' up there?)
Lines 7-8
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Eng 332
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;




Oh, wait. Two lines of optimistic dreaming were, it turns out, a few lines too
many. We're back to thinking about death here.
Also, we're once again diving headfirst into some seriously imaginative
language. Tracing the shadows of romance with the "magic hand of
chance"? What does that even mean? (We have to admit, we're beginning
to worry about Keats' ability to win over the ladies.)
Here's a rough translation of what's going on here: Any sort of love or
romance is dependent on a healthy dose of good luck (or, in Keats'
language, "chance"). It's like that Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors (or
John Cusack in Serendipity) – you never know how one chance encounter
or one small decision will shape your love life.
We're guessing that Keats is actually pretty excited about the randomness of
love. It's that randomness which makes things exciting, right. That's why it's
rather sad that he thinks he'll die before experiencing this kind of love.
Lines 9-10
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,





Hmmm… let's take a little poll here: who feels excited about being called a
"fair creature of an hour"? Anyone? Anyone?
On the positive side, being "fair" is the 19th-century equivalent of being hot.
So, that's good. Being the "creature of an hour," though, could mean a
couple of things – and we're warning you now, neither of them are good.
For one thing, it could mean that the "hour" is Keats' hour: as in, he likes you
now, but tomorrow….well, who knows?
Then again, it could mean that you're mortal, just like him. In other words, in
comparison to things like the heavens and the clouds, which measure time
in eons, humans measure time in hours. You don't have all that much time to
spend on this earth.
See? Neither one is particularly flattering, is it? Unless, of course, you buy into
Keats' strange sort of ecstatic hopelessness. In that case, you're good to go.
Lines 11-12
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; […]

Notice all of the negative constructions stacking up here? It's all the
semantic counterpart to Keats' philosophy of negative capability. Want to
know what we mean? Check out what we have to say about negative
capability in "Symbolism, Imagery, Wordplay."

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
T. Enas Fawzy
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Once again, emotions (like, say, love) are painted in the most grand and
imaginative language possible. Love's a "faery power." Maybe that means
it's magical and wonderful and generally amazing – just like fairies. Then
again, maybe it means that, just like fairies, love doesn't really exist.
Maybe being thrown into "unreflecting" love is a way to get caught up in the
crazy, stupid, exciting thrill of forgetting your better judgment and
smooching that girl (or guy) you know you should just leave alone.
But has forgetting your better judgment ever turned out to be a good plan
in the long run? That's precisely the quandary that Keats packs into one
small line (line 12, in case you were wondering). Is stupid crazy love a good
thing? We sure can't say, but that doesn't mean that it's not appealing.
Lines 12-14
[…] —then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.



If you know anything about sonnets, you probably know that they are
fourteen lines long and usual have a "turn," a point in the poem that signals
a major reversal in the thoughts or desires that shaped the first few lines of
the poem. Oftentimes the turn occurs around line 8 or 9.
Keats actually starts his turn in line twelve. Don't worry, we'll talk more about
that in our "Form and Meter" section.
Keats has spent a good deal of time thinking about fame, writing, and
desire, as well as the possibilities and impossibilities of love. Now, though, he
takes a step back and scopes out the "wide world." This, folks, is a key
Romantic move. You could almost write up a formula for all Romantic
poetry based upon it:
1. Speaker gets caught up in tumultuous, overwhelming, passionate
desires.
2. Speaker goes off alone to contemplate nature.
3. Speaker realizes that all his/her desires are petty and small – especially
when they're compared to the scope of the outside world.

See? Keats follows this formula exactly. You could almost say that he wrote it
himself. In fact, we think we will.
Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art
John Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
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And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death—
Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art Summary
The speaker in this poem is talking to a star. Weird, huh? Well, in poetry, you can
get away with anything. So what does he tell the star? Well, he starts off by saying
how he wishes he were as "stedfast" as it is. Because the star he's talking about
doesn't move, it's likely that Keats means the North Star (a.k.a. Polaris). The North
Star, of course, is the one star that doesn't move in the sky, because it is directly
above the North Pole. Thus, sailors use it as a point of navigation.
All very interesting, but why is Keats's speaker talking to the star? Hard to say,
because, then in the next line, he shifts gears, and starts talking about all the ways
in which he doesn't want to be like the star. Now it seems he doesn't like the idea
of spending all eternity in loneliness, watching the chill-inducing spectacle of water
flowing endlessly around the earth, and snow falling on barren landscapes. Hm.
So what was up with all that wanting to be a star business? In the ninth line, we
start to get a hint. The speaker wants to be like a star in the sense that the star
doesn't move, and never changes. But he wants to take that whole never moving,
never changing bit, and put it in a different context. He wants to spend all eternity
with his head lying on his girlfriend's breast. And if he can't spend all eternity like
that, he'd rather die, by swooning. So, basically, he'd like to be like the star, but...
Line 1
Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
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The speaker begins by calling by name the person he's talking to. Or, not the
person, but the thing: the "Bright Star." But he's talking to it as if it were a
person.
Then he reveals why he's talking to the star: he wishes that he were as
"stedfast" as the star is. (In case you didn't catch that, "would I were stedfast
as thou art" is a shortened way of saying "would [that] I were [as] stedfast as
thou art," which is an old-fashioned way of saying, "I wish I were as steadfast
as you are." All cool?)
From this, we can tell that he is talking to the North Star, also known as
Polaris, which is the only star that remains motionless in the sky while the
other stars appear to revolve around it (source). As a result, the North Star is
often used for navigation.
Because the North Star is often used for navigation, a person looking at it
would typically be a traveler, especially a traveler by sea.
Travelers are often homesick. If you're constantly on the move, you might
start to think about settling down, becoming more "stedfast." Could this be
why Keats's speaker is talking to the star, and saying he wants to be like it?
Line 2
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
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Now Keats surprises us – instead of throwing a fastball like we were
expecting, he's thrown a changeup. (You might think the baseball
metaphor doesn't fit Keats, but he was actually an occasional cricket
player, as he reveals in the beginning of this famous letter to his brother and
sister-in-law. If our man had grown up in America, we think he would have
been a baseball player all the way.)
So, what makes Keats's second line a changeup? Simple. He started off in
the first line by telling us that he wanted to be like the star he sees in the
heavens. But now, in the very second line of the poem, he starts telling us
how he doesn't want to be like the star. Huh?
On the whole, the description of the star still sounds pretty nifty, what with
fancy words like "splendor" and the idea of being "aloft" (i.e., "above," or "at
the highest point of") the night.
So what's not to like? We don't know…maybe that word "lone" has
something to do with it? We guess we'll just have to wait and see…
Line 3
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
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It looks like "waiting and seeing" is the name of the game. That's because
Keats is continuing his description of what the star does: it keeps an eye on
stuff.
And yes, we said "keeps an eye" on purpose. Sure, we know that the stars
you learn about in astronomy class don't have eyeballs, or eyelids, but this is
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a poetic star, and if Keats says that it keeps its "lids" (i.e., "eyelids") "apart,"
then we've just got to take his word for it.
OK, so the star spends its time watching, what's so bad about that? Could it
have something to do with that word "eternal"? What's that word "eternal"
doing there? What does Keats mean by "eternal lids"? That sounds pretty
weird, doesn't it?
To explain what's going on here, we have to bring in a little bit of fancy
poetry terminology (sorry). The terminology we need is "transferred epithet."
Now, we know that sounds really complicated, but it's actually really simple.
Here's the deal:
An "epithet" is basically just the same as an adjective: it's a word that gets
stuck onto something else to describe it. A "transferred epithet," then, is an
epithet that should be attached to one word in the sentence, but gets stuck
on to another word just to mix things up a bit.
In this case, you could say that the epithet "eternal" most naturally goes with
the word "apart." Let's try rewriting the line to show what we mean here:
"And watching, with lids eternally apart." That makes pretty good sense,
right?
So, the idea is that, not only does the star watch things and keep its eyelids
open, but it does so eternally.
Why did Keats transfer the epithet "eternal" from "apart" to "lids"? No one can
know for sure, but we're guessing it has to do with sound. The way Keats
ended up doing it works much better for technical metrical reasons (we will
explain Keats's metrics in more detail in our "Form and Meter" and "Sound
Check" sections). You can tell this just by sounding the two versions out: "And
watching, with lids eternally apart" vs. "And watching, with eternal lids apart."
Now, you certainly don't have to agree with us, but we're willing to bet that
you will agree with us that the second version sounds better. (It's fine if you
disagree, of course – after all, we didn't actually bet anything.)
So, the way Keats ended up doing works well as far as the sound is
concerned. But does it make any sense?
If you think about it, it actually does, even if it isn't quite as clear as it would
be if he had kept the epithet stuck on "apart," where it seems to belong
most naturally.
Think about it: if the star keeps its eyelids apart, and if its eyelids are eternal,
doesn't that kind of add up to the same thing as saying that it will keep its
eyelids apart eternally? It may be a little less clear, but we still think it works
out OK, so Keats gets away with this one.
But let's get back to the main story. Line 3 continues the description of what
the star does. Remember, that this is still in the category of stuff that the star
does that the speaker of the poem doesn't want to do, following from the
"Not" at the beginning of line 2.
Oh yeah, and one last thing. What is the star watching? We still don't know.
Line 4
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
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Here Keats continues the description of the star. Now he mixes things up a
little by throwing in a simile.
What's that? A simile is when you explicitly compare something to something
else: A is like B.
Here, Keats is comparing the way in which the star is watching to the way
"nature's patient, sleepless Eremite" might watch something. Makes things so
much clearer, right? Uh, then again, maybe not.
We're guessing that most of these words should be familiar to you, though
there are one or two pitfalls. First of all, you should be aware that "patient" is
here being used as an adjective (a word describing a noun), just as in the
sentence "the patient poet took time in writing her poem." It isn't being used
as a noun, as it would be in the sentence, "the poet took so long writing her
poem that she ended up as a patient in an insane asylum."
OK, so "patient" and "sleepless" are both adjectives modifying "Eremite," but
this leaves a major elephant in the room. What the heck is an Eremite?
Actually, it isn't that complicated. An "eremite" is just an old-fashioned way
of saying "hermit." (If you look at the two words or say them one after the
other, you can see how they are really just different ways of pronouncing the
same word.)
So why did Keats use this old-fashioned word "eremite" when he could have
just said "hermit"? Was "eremite" just the normal way of saying it back in the
early nineteenth century, when this poem was written?
Actually, no. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the pronunciation
"hermit" was actually the more common pronunciation ever since the
middle of the seventeenth century. After that, people who used it were
being deliberately old-fashioned, using it for poetic or rhetorical effect.
But what poetic or rhetorical effect might Keats have been going for?
Well, one obvious one is the rhyme: "Eremite" rhymes with "night" and "hermit"
doesn't. Score one for "Eremite."
But wait – the Oxford English Dictionary actually tells us something more! It
says that, after the middle of the seventeenth century, people also
sometimes used the word "eremite" to emphasize the Greek origin of the
word, "eremia," which means desert. That's because the first hermits were
people who moved into the desert to be closer to God.
Could this be relevant to Keats's poem? We don't know about you, but we're
pretty tempted to connect up the idea of the "hermit" or "Eremite" with the
description of the star in line 2 as "in LONE splendour hung aloft the night."
So, by calling the star an "Eremite," Keats's is emphasizing the star's
aloneness.
As for the fact that he capitalizes the word "Eremite"…we're not so sure, and
are open to suggestions.
Still, nothing says we can't try to think it through together. The description of
the Eremite in the beginning of the line, "Nature's patient, sleepless" kind of
singles it out as a singular, special thing. Maybe it's this idea of singling the
one eremite out as the super-important one that makes Keats capitalize this
word. And that kind of connects with the singular importance of the North
Star as the one that doesn't move, right?
So, from line 4, we know that the star is like a solitary dweller in the desert, is
extremely patient, and never sleeps. Keep in mind that this whole simile got
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introduced to explain the way in which the star is watching. What's it
watching again? We still don't know.
Line 5
The moving waters at their priestlike task
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Aha! Now Keats shows his hand! We know what the star is watching. Or…do
we?
Once we start looking at this line carefully, it seems to raise more questions
than it answers.
The star is watching "moving waters" – but which moving waters?
And the waters are performing a "priestlike task" – but what is this task?
Clearly, we're going to have to keep reading.
Line 6
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
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Now we learn what the "priestlike task" of the "moving waters" is: it is a "task of
pure ablution." We also learn where this task is performed "round earth's
human shores." Huh?
Let's take those parts one at a time.
First of all: what the heck is "ablution"? The main meaning of "ablution" that
Keats is using here is of a ritual cleansing. This matches up pretty well with the
idea of the "priestlike" quality of the waters' task.
OK, but what about the "earth's human shores"? Basically, the idea is that
human activity has stretched all over the globe; the shores of a continent of
land are the edges of human life – when the waters flow around these
landforms, they are flowing around the boundaries of the human world.
Now, we don't know if you're going to agree with this, but doesn't it kind of
seem as if the ideas of the shores' being "human" and that of "ablution" are
somehow connected, as if humanity's presence were some sort of pollution
that had to be washed clean? Of course, we do know from contemporary
life that humans are a great source of pollution, so the idea isn't crazy.
But does this mean that Keats has a completely negative view of humanity?
We don't think it does necessarily – but we'll just have to keep reading to see
what happens.
Line 7
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque
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Now we see Keats mixing things up once again. Instead of continuing with
his description of the waters mysteriously cleansing or purifying the shores of
the human world, he hits us up with an "Or" – we are going to learn about
something else that the star does, instead of more about the first thing.
Not to say that there aren't similarities between the first thing the star does
and the second. Before, we're told that the star was "watching" something,
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and now we're told that it is "gazing on" something. These activities are
pretty similar to each other. Did Keats just mix up the verbs to keep things
interesting? What's the difference between "watching" something and
"gazing on it"? We're not sure either, we just think it's worth thinking about.
Something else is different in this second of the star's activities. The first time,
when we learned that the star was "watching" something (in line 3), we had
to wait until line 5 to find out what it was watching. This time, we're told
immediately what it is "gazing on": the "new soft-fallen mask."
But wait, is that any clearer? What the heck is a "new soft-fallen masque"?
Don't worry about the weird spelling – "masque" here is just an old-fashioned,
slightly fancy way of spelling "mask." But that's the least of our worries: the
speaker still isn't really giving us much of a clue to what's going on here. It
looks like Keats has cleverly forced us to keep reading once again.
Line 8
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
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Now Keats lets the other shoe drop: the mask that the star "gazes upon" (line
7) is actually a "mask / Of snow" that is falling upon "the mountains and the
moors."
Learning this new detail in line 8 actually forces us to reinterpret line 7. Why?
Because now we know that the mask that the star was watching wasn't a
real mask, but instead a metaphorical mask. Literally speaking, the star is
watching a layer of snow falling; Keats, in writing the poem, just chose to
describe this layer of snow as a "mask."
Why might he have done so? What is the effect of this image? Well, a mask
is a covering, right? And in this case, the layer of snow is indeed covering
something else. What's it covering? The "mountains and the moors."
Of these two words, we're pretty sure you know what a "mountain" is, but a
"moor" might be a little more unfamiliar – at least if you come from
somewhere other than England.
A "moor," according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, is "an expanse
of open rolling infertile land" or "a boggy area; especially: one that is peaty
and dominated by grasses and sedges" (source). If you have read Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles, or Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights,
or William Shakespeare's King Lear, you will have encountered moors before.
The basic idea of a "moor," then, is that it is a barren, lonely, uninhabited
place. And so are mountains, usually.
So, really, Keats is talking about one blank, cold, barren substance, "snow,"
landing on, and creating a mask over, two blank, cold, barren, lonely
landscapes: "the mountains and the moors." This is laying it on a little thick,
isn't it?
Either way, we don't know about you, but we're definitely getting a chilly
feeling from these lines – one that echoes the mournful image of the waves
washing the earth (lines 5-6) and the loneliness of the star (lines 2-4) earlier in
the poem.
Do all these sensations help explain why Keats doesn't want to be like the
star? We sure think so. But what about why he wants to be like the star?
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Didn't he start off the whole poem by telling the star how he wishes he "were
stedfast as thou art"? What about that? Did he just forget about it? What's
going on here?
Line 9
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable
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Hm…was Keats listening to us a moment ago? Just when we thought he was
forgetting what he was talking about, he shows us that he was in control all
along.
The "No" at the beginning of this line is kind of like an exclamation, the
speaker's final comment on just about everything that has come before.
After spinning out that whole long description of what he doesn't want
(everything about the star beginning in line 2), it now looks like he's washing
his hands of the whole thing…but does he?
No: the speaker of this poem isn't an either/or kind of guy. He doesn't have
to either be entirely like the star or entirely unlike the star. Instead, because
it's his poem, he gets to pick and choose which aspects of the star he wants
to be like and which he doesn't want to be like.
Which aspects does he want to be like? He tells us: "still stedfast, still
unchangeable." Even though the general idea of this line is probably pretty
clear, to have a full understanding of it, it helps to know that Keats is using
"still" in an old-fashioned way, where it means "always." So the idea is really
that he will be "always steadfast, always unchangeable."
This matches up perfectly with what we learned in line 1: "Bright star, would I
were stedfast as thou art." It's starting to look like the speaker definitely
admires the fact that the star is so dependable, he just doesn't like where
the star hangs out (way up in the sky), and he doesn't like what the star looks
at (lonely images of waters and snow falling on barren landscapes).
OK, fair enough Mr. Poetic-Speaker-Man, you've told us what you like about
the star and what you don't like about it. But do you have any constructive
criticism to make things better?
Line 10
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
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Ahh, that does sound better. Now the speaker starts making a bit more
sense: sure, he'd love to be as "stedfast" as the star, but he isn't jazzed about
sitting up in the high heavens taking in all those dreary sights. Instead, he'd
like to be just as "stedfast" in resting his head on his girlfriend's breast.
Everything in this line seems pretty self-explanatory…maybe except for the
word "ripening." What do you think the poet could have been going for
here?
Our best guess is that the speaker's girlfriend is still fairly young and so is still in
the process of "filling out," so to speak.
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Do you think it's possible that the word "ripening" also gives a feeling of
sweetness and warmth that contrasts with the cold images of the waters
and the snow falling on barren landscapes?
We think this is certainly possible, especially since so many poets describe
the skin of their (female) objects of affection as "snow-white" or "snowy." So,
the stereotypical thing for Keats to do here would be to follow suit. In fact, if
you've read enough Romantic poetry, you might automatically visualize the
love's breast as "snow" colored, even without Keats telling you (as in fact he
doesn't).
Thus, you could almost say that Keats is counting on his readers having this
expectation, so that they then get a surprise when he doesn't follow the
playbook. This heightens the contrast between this image and the images
that have come before, and might lead to an even stronger sense of
sweetness and warmth at this point.
Line 11
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
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The speaker continues his description of what he would like to be able to do.
Now we learn that, while resting his head on his girlfriend's breast, he would
also get to feel her breathing.
By bringing in the idea of "for ever," Keats continues to emphasize the main
aspect of the star's existence the speaker would like to have: its
permanence.
Note that, in some editions of this poem, depending on which of Keats's
manuscript versions they were taking as their starting point, the words "swell"
and "fall" appear in the opposite order. For an example of this, check out this
version of the poem, which reproduces the text as it appeared when the
poem was first printed in 1848 (27 years after Keats's death).
What difference do you think the order of the words makes? Which order do
you prefer? Why?
Line 12
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
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Here the speaker spins out his description of what he'd like to do even
further.
Even though he would be resting his face on his girlfriend's breast like a
pillow, he doesn't want to fall asleep there and miss out on all the action.
Instead, he would rather remain awake forever.
This is another parallel between the speaker and the star, which keeps its
eyes open forever (as we learned from Keats's reference to its "eternal lids
apart" in line 3). Once again, context is everything. It's a lot better to be
forever awake with your head resting on your girlfriend than in is to be high
up in the barren cosmos with nothing but equally barren sights to feast your
eyes on.
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This line is also interesting because it takes an idea that might normally be a
bad thing ("unrest"), and makes it a good thing, by sticking the adjective
"sweet" in front of it.
Line 13
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
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More description of what the speaker would like to do. This description
seems pretty similar to what he said back in line 11, when he said he wanted
to "feel for ever its soft swell and fall." Is he just repeating himself for effect?
Are we learning anything new here?
Well, we think that, in one way, the speaker is repeating himself – and that
there's kind of a point to that. After all, he is saying that he would like to do
the same thing forever and ever and ever for the rest of all eternity, and so it
makes sense for him to repeat words to give you a sense of that.
But, in another way, we also think that he isn't repeating himself, but is
introducing new information. That's because, the first time that he talked
about his girlfriend's breathing, it was in the context of the sense of touch: he
would "feel" her chest rising and falling. Now, it is in the context of the sense
of hearing: he wants to "hear" her breathing, too.
Before we forget: one other notable thing about this line, of course, is the
repetition of the word "still" at the beginning. Have we heard this word in the
poem before? Yes we have, back in line 9: "yet still stedfast, still
unchangeable." Why do you think he chose to emphasize the word at this
point?
Does "still" even still (hehe) mean the same thing it did before? Could it now
mean "still" in the sense of "motionless"? Could it mean both? If so, which of
the two meanings is the "main" meaning here, and which is the secondary
meaning? These are all things you should be thinking about here. Remember
though: because this is a poem, it's perfectly possible for multiple meanings
of a word to be present at the same time.
Line 14
And so live ever—or else swoon to death—
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Now Keats comes to the punchline, if you want to call it that, the line that
takes us from the cosmic perspective to the human perspective, that says
what we've been thinking all along, but haven't had the guts to say…
Sorry, we were just imitating Keats in taking our sweet time before coming to
the point. The point? Ah yes, the point: the speaker now says that, if he can't
live forever in the way he has just described, he would rather "swoon to
death."
But here's the question: is this a real set of alternatives? Let's put it another
way: let's say Keats's parents (who unfortunately died when he was a child,
long before they would have had the chance to read this poem) were
having a talk with him about his future, and he said, "You know, what I really
want to do with my future is either (a) live forever with my head on my
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girlfriend's breast or (b) swoon to death." Would they think he was being very
realistic?
We would say no. Hate to break it to you, but you can't live forever with your
head delicately resting on your girlfriend's rack. You would probably get a
mean crick in your neck, she would end up with bruises, and one of you
would have to go to the bathroom sometime.
As for option (b), that doesn't seem too realistic either. How many people do
you know that have "swooned" to death? Probably not many, and, if they
did, it was probably because they did there swooning in some inconvenient
location, like, say, at the top of a really tall cliff. And even then, they
probably didn't swoon to death purely because they were missing out on
some bosom-pillow action.
So, it's clear that neither of these is a realistic option. Does that mean Keats
isn't being serious? We wouldn't say so. That's because both options reflect a
serious desire, even if the desire is for something completely unrealistic.
Or is it completely unrealistic? Is it possible that, even if the process of
"swooning" comes a bit out of left field, Keats's mention of death can't help
but remind us of the fate of all humans?
Doesn't this inevitably make us realize that the speaker will, in fact die, and
that his desire to lie with his beloved forever won't come true?
How to think about this ending is, of course, a matter of personal taste. But
we at Shmoop think it's highly likely that ending with the word "death" is
Keats's way of giving us the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" that his speaker is also
doomed. This draws the ultimate contrast between the frailty of human
mortals and the unchanging immortality of the Bright Star from line 1.
One final thing: note than, in the text of the poem we're using (the Oxford
World's Classics edition edited by Elizabeth Cook), the poem ends with a
dash: "—". This follows the punctuation of one of Keats's own manuscript
versions of the poem. Other modern editors (probably most of them) prefer
to add a period at the end. Is there a different mood created by the two
forms of punctuation? If so, what is it? If you were the editor, would you have
followed Keats's manuscript punctuation, or would you have modernized it?
Why?
She Walks in Beauty
Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
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Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
She Walks in Beauty Summary
The poem is about an unnamed woman. She's really quite striking, and
the speaker compares her to lots of beautiful, but dark, things, like "night" and
"starry skies." The second stanza continues to use the contrast between light and
dark, day and night, to describe her beauty. We also learn that her face is really
"pure" and "sweet." The third stanza wraps it all up – she's not just beautiful, she's
"good" and "innocent," to boot.
Lines 1-2
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
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An unnamed woman "walks in beauty." This is an odd way of saying that
she's beautiful, isn't it? "Walk[ing] in beauty" makes her beauty seem more
dynamic – as though it's partly her movement and the spring in her step that
make her beautiful. She's not just a pretty face in a portrait; it's the whole
living, breathing, "walk[ing]" woman that's beautiful.
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Her beauty is compared to "night." This seems strange – night is dark, right?
Aren't beautiful women usually compared to "a summer's day"? (That would
be Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, in case you were wondering).
But the featured woman isn't just compared to any "night," she's compared
to a night in a place where there are no clouds and lots of stars. We suppose
that means she has a very clear and lovely complexion? Or perhaps being
"cloudless" has more to do with her personality – her conscience might be as
clear as a "cloudless" sky.
You see "starry skies" at night, but the brightness of the stars relieves the
darkness of the night. This is the first hint of a contrast between light and dark
in the poem.
There's some pretty sweet alliteration in these lines. You might want to head
over to the "Symbols" section for more on that before moving forward.
Lines 3-4
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
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The contrast between light and dark that was first brought up by the "starry
skies" in line 2 is repeated and developed in line 3.
Everything that is great about both "dark" and "bright" come together in this
woman. Essentially, she's got the best of both.
Her "aspect" can mean both her facial expression and her overall
appearance.
So her whole appearance and especially her "eyes" create some kind of
harmony between "dark" and "bright."
If this seems weird to you, think of a really beautiful person who has dark
eyes that always seem to sparkle – or someone whose eye color contrasts
with his or her hair color in an attractive way. That's what Byron's talking
about – contrast that creates beauty and harmony.
Byron's setting up a binary, or opposition, between "bright" and "dark," but it's
important to realize that neither is considered better or worse than the other.
Both have aspects that are "best."
Lines 5-6
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
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Everything that's great about both "dark and bright" (line 3) is "mellow'd," or
toned down to something that's more "tender" and less intense than the light
you get during the day.
Since Byron has been talking about night, try thinking about starlight or
moonlight – that would be a "tender light" that is less "gaudy," or bright and
blinding, than the light you get during the day.
Lines 7-10
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
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The balance between "shade" and light in the lady's beauty is so perfect
that if you added one more "shade," or took away a single "ray" of light,
you'd mess everything up.
Fiddling with that balance at all would "half impair," or partially damage, the
woman's beauty.
Her beauty and "grace" are so hard to define that they're "nameless." The
poet can't quite put his finger on what makes her so "grace[ful]," but he'll
give it a try. After all, that's what the poem is doing – attempting to put
sentiments into words.
This "nameless grace" is visible in every lock of her black hair("every raven
tress") and it "lightens" her face.
Look – more about the contrast of light and dark. The balance between light
and dark that creates her "nameless grace" is apparent in both her dark hair
and in the expression that "lightens" her face.
Lines 11-12
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
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The expression on the woman's face shows how "serenely sweet" her
"thoughts" are.
Her "sweet" expression, the speaker reasons, is an accurate reflection of
what's going on inside her mind, which is the "dwelling place" of her
thoughts.
Here we have another binary, or set of contrasts, to keep track of:
her exterior expression, and her interior thoughts.
The "sweet[ness]" of this lady's expression suggests that her mind is "pure" and
innocent.
"Dear," in this context (and in British English generally), means both precious
and valuable.
Lines 13-15
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
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The woman's smiles and her healthy blushes ("tints") that "glow" on her
"cheek" and "brow" are serene and "calm." ("Brow" is just a poetic way of
saying forehead.)
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
In other words, she's quiet and rather elegant – she doesn't joke and laugh a
lot; she seems to be more of the lovely and regal type.
But even though she's quiet and "calm," her "smiles" and blushes are
"eloquent" Her face is very expressive, even if she doesn't say much out loud.
Lines 16-18
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
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But what, exactly, do those "smiles" express? We're so glad you asked: Byron
tells us that they reflect all the time that the woman has spent doing good
deeds.
She's certainly not just a pretty face – she's also kind and good, which is why
she's able to look so "calm" and serene: her conscience is at rest.
The woman's serenity and "smiles" also reflect the calmness of her mind.
Because she's a good person, her "mind" is at "peace with all below"
(everyone on earth).
Not only that, but her "love is innocent." This could mean that she's not in
love with anyone, or it could mean that she is, but that her love is pure and
"innocent" – in other words, that it's not a sexual love.
So We'll Go No More a Roving
Lord Byron
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
So We'll Go No More a Roving Summary
The speaker has decided to call it a day, with his partying and wandering around
at night, that is. He still sort of wants to be out there, having a great time, and darn,
that moon is still beckoning to him. At some point, though, it gets old. Gotta grow
up sometime, ya know? It's kind of like getting new shoes when you're young; your
feet get bigger, and it's time to get new ones. Same idea here, only instead of new
shoes, it's new ways to spend one's time ("older" ways).
Lines 1-2
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
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The speaker opens with some anaphora, repeating the same structure to
begin each line: "so we'll go no more a roving / So late into the night." The
word "rove" means "wander" or "roam."
The speaker is saying that it's time stop wandering around aimlessly late into
the night. It's also possible that he (and we just assume that it's a "he") is
being metaphorical. What, really?
Really. Byron wrote this poem when he was 29, and even at that very young
age he felt that he was getting old, maybe like this guy. (Byron would, in
fact, die just seven years later.)
By saying "we'll go no more a roving," he could be saying his life is drawing to
a close, that the time for play is over, and that he must prepare for old age
and death.
There's a "we," so it's possible the speaker is talking to somebody else (a
buddy, a girlfriend). He could also just be saying "we" to mean himself—
people do that sometimes.
Lines 3-4
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
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The speaker says they'll go no more a roving, even though the moon is still as
bright, and the heart is "still as loving."
The point is that even though the heart is very much alive, very much
emotionally ready to go rove ("loving"), and even though the moon is still
really bright (meaning they can wander around and still be able to see), it's
time to stop.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
Well why stop roving when the heart still wants to, and the bright moon is
very inviting? Probably because there comes a time when you have to stop
wandering and messing around.
This is a way of saying one must stop messing around and playing and grow
up. It also, very subtly, is a way of alluding to the approach of death.
Sure, the poem doesn't really talk a lot about death per se, but fears of
getting old and fears of "roving" too much sound like the fears of somebody
whose life is nearing its conclusion.
While the word "still" means "continuous" or "continually," we can't help
thinking of "still" in the sense of "not moving"—i.e., the stillness of a dead
body.
(There is definitely no reference to this meaning of still.)
It doesn't look like it, but "roving" and "loving" rhyme (play around with the
pronunciation until you find one that suits you). "Night" and "bright" rhyme as
well, which means the rhyme scheme for this first stanza is ABAB.
We'd love to tell you about the meter, too, but it's a little tricky. For now,
keep in mind that it is a version of trimeter (meaning there are three beats
per line). Head over to "Form and Meter" for a more thorough rove through
this poem's metrical and rhyming nuances.
Lines 5-6
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
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The speaker continues to explain the meaning of his decision to stop roving.
He's going to stop roving is because he's tired of it—it's time for him to stop
messing around. Enough is enough. That's the gist of it.
The idea of old age becomes even more pronounced here. A sword can
only outwear its sheath (its holster or scabbard) after a long time. The
speaker is like the sword; he's been around a while and has "worn out" his
desire to rove.
(Here's an old beat-up sheath just in case you're interested.)
The same goes for that bit about the soul. Eventually, the soul — an
inanimate, inner spiritual being that some say resides within us — gets tired of
the body and goes wherever souls go.
This is a very specific reference to death. In many religions, including
Christianity, when you die your body remains on earth but your soul goes to
heaven or some other spiritual place after life.
"Sheath" and "breast" don't rhyme sonically, but they both contain that "ea"
vowel group. This is kind of an example of aneye rhyme — i.e., two words
that look similar but don't actually rhyme.
We say kind of because the words don't look that similar (the examples
usually given are "slaughter" and "laughter"), but parts of them do.
Lines 7-8
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
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T. Enas Fawzy
Eng 332
The speaker continues to explain his meaning. The "heart must pause to
breathe" and "love itself have rest."
We have lots of anaphora going on too, what with all those "ands."
Okay, the first bit implies that roving is a tiresome activity—the heart needs to
rest. Wait, heart? We thought he was talking about wandering around at all
hours of the night?
Well he is. The heart makes things a little tricky. He's probably thinking of the
heart in a figurative sense as the source of motivation. For example, when
your friend asks you why you no longer play baseball, you might say "my
heart's not in it anymore."
Sometimes, the heart needs a break from wanting to do things. If your heart
is always obsessed with something, like roving, it can get tiresome.
The speaker is also probably thinking of the heart as the source of love and
emotion. This is why he talks about love needing a rest too.
Love eh? Yep. He might just be thinking of some basic kind of love (like a
love of French fries, or roaming), but this is Byron. He definitely loved the
ladies.
It's entirely plausible that Byron is talking about chasing girls, or loving girls, or
something to do with romance. It's still kind of vague, which is probably
good.
(Byron got in some hot water for that kind of stuff at a few points in his life.)
Let's talk about that word "breathe" for a second. It rhymes with "sheath," but
there's another little eye rhyme type thing going on with "breast." That's three
words in a row that contain an "ea."
Like the first stanza, every other line in this one also rhymes: CDCD.
Lines 9-12
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
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Well, this is sort of an anti-carpe diem moment for you. The day returns too
soon, and the night is meant for loving, so why not seize the day and go
roving, right?
Right, but wrong. The speaker has decided that he (or they) will not rove any
longer, for reasons he's already explained, and even though the night is
perfect for it.
The reference to "loving," which we've had before (8), makes us think of sex
just a little bit. It's Byron. He loved sex. Maybe's he finally going to give up his
lecherous ways and chill out.
He might also just mean he's going to give up going out and getting crazy
(things he loves) with all the friends he loves. The 29-year-old frat boy in him
no
longer
wants
to
be
a
frat
guy.
He's going from this guy to one of these guys.