A Different Take on Spring

by Camille Hunt

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the flowers are blooming. Each year, the turning of seasons from winter to spring conjures up the old pastel cliché of green grass and warm weather, Easter eggs and daffodils Literature sometimes provides an alternative vision of spring, however; poet William Wordsworth puts a dark spin on the bright season, particularly in his late eighteenth century poem “Lines Written in Early Spring.”

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Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” reflects his concerns about the development of industrialization, which took hold during his 19th century writing career. The Industrial Revolution took place from the 18th and 19th centuries, transitioning Europe and America from primarily agrarian to urban societies. Industrialization introduced new technology, mass production, and a focus on factory work. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution was Great Britain, its extensive deposits of coal and iron ore setting it up as an abundant source of raw materials. Nature took on a completely new meaning; it became a source to be exploited to contribute to a material world. Where Nature previously existed as the allegorical provider of life, industrialization made it a source for man to create a new life for modernized humans. The poet considers “What man has made of man” in his verse of alternate rhyme.

 

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?

The first stanza of the poem has only become increasingly relevant over time. Man is now facing the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, the repercussions of “what man has made of man.” The wild weather this spring has made the season unpredictable, fluctuating between snow and temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. With each warm, sunny day, we might be “In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts / Bring sad thoughts to the mind,” at first elated by a cloudless sky before being reminded that an abruptly hot day amidst rising and falling weather patterns could be a result of global warming.

“What man has made of man” goes against what Nature made man to be. Man has made itself a rival of Nature, a creator with no right to change what Nature created, and yet that is what we have done. We do not live harmoniously in Nature’s world, and each unnaturally warm spring day comes with a nagging reminder that the warmth we enjoy now is the result of “What man has made of man.”

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Poet Wendell Berry’s 2009 poem “A Speech to the Garden Club of America” echoes Wordsworth’s thoughts in a modern world. Published in the New Yorker, the poem continues Wordsworth’s lamentation of “What man has made of man,” referencing the burning of fossil fuels to sustain the lives of men instead of living by Nature’s laws, asking, “Why not survive / By Nature’s laws that still keep up alive?” and denouncing “our economic pyre / That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire, / An anti-life of radiance and fume.”

 

Thank you. I’m glad to know we’re friends, of course;
There are so many outcomes that are worse.
But I must add I’m sorry for getting here
By a sustained explosion through the air,
Burning the world in fact to rise much higher
Than we should go. The world may end in fire
As prophesied—our world! We speak of it
As “fuel” while we burn it in our fit
Of temporary progress, digging up
An antique dark-held luster to corrupt
The present light with smokes and smudges, poison
To outlast time and shatter comprehension.
Burning the world to live in it is wrong,
As wrong as to make war to get along
And be at peace, to falsify the land
By sciences of greed, or by demand
For food that’s fast or cheap to falsify
The body’s health and pleasure—don’t ask why.
But why not play it cool? Why not survive
By Nature’s laws that still keep us alive?
Let us enlighten, then, our earthly burdens
By going back to school, this time in gardens
That burn no hotter than the summer day.
By birth and growth, ripeness, death and decay,
By goods that bind us to all living things,
Life of our life, the garden lives and sings.
The Wheel of Life, delight, the fact of wonder,
Contemporary light, work, sweat, and hunger
Bring food to table, food to cellar shelves.
creature of the surface, like ourselves,
The garden lives by the immortal Wheel
That turns in place, year after year, to heal
It whole. Unlike our economic pyre
That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,
An anti-life of radiance and fume
That burns as power and remains as doom,
The garden delves no deeper than its roots
And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.

As we transition into spring this year, let us be mindful of our relationship with the earth and appreciate the life it sustains. Wordsworth and Berry, too, would encourage us to accept what Nature provides, not exploit what Nature produces.

 

http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/spring-poems_b_2884434.html

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/28/a-speech-to-the-garden-club-of-america