Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Nature PoemsTo Blossoms
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.
What, were ye born to be
An hour or half’s delight,
And so to bid good-night?
‘Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you awhile, they glide
Into the grave.
Overview Short Summary
Herrick uses blossoms to reflect on beauty, time, and mortality. The poem is short, clear, and useful for poems on flowers and nature with meaning.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Flowers: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- brief beauty: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- time: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- mortality: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is tender and elegiac, creating a mood of delicate sadness.
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
Overview Short Summary
This poem compares the brief life of daffodils with human life. It is a classic example of a beautiful nature poem that carries a deeper human meaning.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Daffodils: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- life and death: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- spring: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- passing time: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is mournful yet graceful, with a reflective and tender mood.
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Overview Short Summary
This very short poem captures the power and sharp movement of an eagle. It is ideal for students looking for easy nature poems to analyze.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Birds: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- power: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- mountains: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- movement: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is intense and dramatic, with a mood of sudden energy.
Flower in the Crannied Wall
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Overview Short Summary
A tiny flower becomes a doorway into large questions about life and existence. The poem is short but very strong for nature poems with meaning.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Flowers: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- mystery: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- life: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- spiritual reflection: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is thoughtful and wondering, with a meditative mood.
Break, Break, Break
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Overview Short Summary
The sea’s repeated motion mirrors the speaker’s grief. Though often read as a loss poem, it also works as a powerful poem about sea, memory, and nature’s indifference.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Sea: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- grief: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- memory: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
- repetition: This theme helps connect the poem’s natural image with its wider emotional or reflective meaning.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is sorrowful and restrained, while the mood is lonely and wave-like.
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