Lines Written in Early Spring’

‘Lines Written in Early Spring’<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6190786607121964"

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POEM

EXPLANATION

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts, Bring sad thoughts to the mind.       To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.       Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And ’tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure:— But the least motion which they made It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there.   If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature’s holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

Wordsworth sits in a small woodland grove and listens to the birdsong around him. But although happy thoughts are prompted by the birdsong, so are more sombre ones: nature has forged a strong connection between itself and the soul of mankind, but man has repaid the favour by making a mess of his relations with his fellow man.     In the second stanza the poet uses a figure of speech called personification by which he gives Nature the ability to create at her will elements, what he calls “her fair works”, and make the human soul that lives in the poet feel linked with them. This is a way of humanizing Nature by giving her the feature of being a creator  Wordsworth admires the flowers – the primrose, the blue of the periwinkle, the greenness of the woodland area in which he sits – and the birds which ‘hopped and played’ around him.    He describes the birds playing and hopping around him, he says he cannot measure their thoughts. This again shows how Wordsworth gives human attributes to the elements of Nature being the action of thinking and making elaborate thoughts part of the human condition.But it shows too, how, through his only observation, he cannot reach the knowledge of their thinking. Wordsworth wonders if the will and the ability to enjoy the simple development of life by every natural element which he observes are sent from heaven, and whether it may be  a holy plan of Nature. He gives again, as seen in the second stanza, godly attributes to Nature, as creator of life and death, as the force compelling the world. She is able to plan and develop a holy plan.

About the poet

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)                        

He was an English poet,considered as the most influencial poet ine history of English 

literature.He was a nature poet.Some of his famous poems are 'Solitary Reaper','A Slumber

did my Spirits Steal','I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud'(popularly known as Daffodils)

Wordsworth wrote this poem while he went for a walk in a spot near the village of Alford, he describes the moment and the place as a natural scene in motion, branches looking for the sun trying to escape from the water where its tree had fallen and had remained as a natural bridge and water falling down a sloping rock. Through this image we can imagine the sounds and the moment described in the poem.

SUMMARY

Lines Written in Early Spring’, presents the natural world of birds and flowers as one of calm agreement and pleasure, contrasted with the implied failure of mankind to live up to such a model. What precisely ‘man has made of man’ is unstated, and that’s probably for the best: to be explicit about how Wordsworth feels man has failed his fellow man – whether through allowing his fellow humans to starve from poverty and exploitation, or through reverting to savage violence (the poem was written against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, which followed hot on the heels of the Reign of Terror) – would be to limit the poem and to make it too time-specific.

MEANINGS

1. Blended notes- songs of many birds singing together.
2. Sate- satisfy to the full.
3. grieved-felt sad.
4. Primrose- a pale yellow flower,also found in varieties of pink and white.
5. Tuft- a bunch (of hair,grass,feathers,flowers or threads)
6. Bower- a shady place under a tree or a creeping plant.
7. Periwinkle- a small flower with five petals,found in different colours.
8. Lament- mourn.
9. Reclined-lie back in a relaxed position with the back supported
11. Grove- a small wood or other group of trees.

Reading comprehension :-

1. The poet's pleasant thoughts were caused by nature and it's many blended notes.
2. The poet's sad thoughts were caused by the destruction caused to man by man.
3. The sight of the periwinkles twinning through primrose tufts makes the poet believe that every flower enjoys the air it breathes.
4. The birds which were hopping and playing make the poet think that he cannot measure their 
5. The poet thought that budding twigs spread out their fan to catch the breezy air.
6. The rhyme scheme of the poem is ab ab for each stanza.

Questions and answers

Q1. What kind of a mood is the poet in sad /questioning/ confused or anything else?

Ans. The poet is in both happy and melancholy mood ,happy to be in the midst of nature and sad thinking about human destruction and decay.

Q2. Which word in the poem tells us where the poet was while appreciating nature?

Ans. The word "groove" tells us where the poet was while appreciating nature.

Q3. If your soul is linked to nature will you be the kind of person who loves nature?

Ans.If my soul is linked to nature I will be the kind of person who loves nature.

Q4. How does the last line in the second stanza change things for the reader?

Ans.The last line in the second stanza changes things for the reader because it makes them think about the destruction and decay that humans inflict on each other.

Q5. What do you think man has made of man can you associate this line with the story 'Rising above Terror'?

Ans. Our world has become place of moral and religious decay, of opportunism and exploitation and it is all being done by human beings.For instance in rising above terror a bunch of people try to attack a woman and her children just to act on their pent-up rage that is what man has made of man.