Woah! Based
on its title, I thought this piece would blow my mind, and it did, but not only
in the way that I expected. For
starters, "bower", defined by Oxford as "a pleasant shady place
under trees or climbing plants in a garden or wood," has a positive
connotation. But immediately, the
speaker shows this is not the case.
In the first two lines of the poem, the speaker
shows us why the lime-tree bower is a prison, "Well, they are gone, and
here must I remain/This lime-tree bower my prison!" (1-2). So, the speaker
is unhappy because his friends left him...understandable. I suppose I understand why he relates a
beautiful lime-tree bower to a prison.
But wait, the rest of the poem is more mind-blowing,
as the speaker takes us on a journey through his mind—a journey not bound by
time or space. "Beauties and
feelings, such as would have been/Most sweet to my remembrance even when
age/Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness!" (3-5). Here, the speaker has left his current
situation and is fantasizing about what could have been--and not only that, but
how he would have remembered what could’ve been, even when he was dead! Crazy.
He's thinking about remembering something that hasn't even, and won't
even, happen.
But wait, there's more. He goes on to think about what his friends
are likely doing in the current moment.
He imagines them, "wandering in gladness" (8), in a dell
somewhere. He is especially interested
in thinking about all the fun his friend Charles, who was "in the great
City pent" (31), (more prison-like, or maybe even biblical, references?)
and had been longing to get in touch with Nature. Sooo, the speaker thinks of the future, the
past, what might have been, and what might be for someone else, without much
regard for where he currently is. Mind
blown. That lime-tree bower is his time
capsule.
**no "all the fun" before "his friend Charles," in the fourth sentence of the last paragraph haha.
ReplyDeleteI found this poem to be “mind blowing” as well, for it really did take the reader on a journey. First we find the reader in the garden of lime-trees. Next we are taken through his imagination as he daydreams that he is in the sights in the shoes of his visiting friends. The reader is then taken back to the original scene, as the speaker as able to feel happy as if he were seeing all the nature and its wonders that he describes. The lime-trees that were once like a prison now don’t seem as bad.
ReplyDeleteI really like the lines 58-63, because it is here that the speaker opens his eyes to the beauty that is around him. it is here he realizes that people who have an appreciation for nature can find beauty everywhere. For example, when says “No plot so narrow, be put Nature there/No waste so vacant but may we employ/Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart” he is saying that even a space that is small and empty or wasted looking can become something beautiful if we open our senses (like sight and sound and smell). I think this is an important lesson to take away in that it reflects the idea of not judging a book by its cover. We must not become close-minded to first appearances but must consider that beauty that may be there.