Glow-worm Essay, Research Paper

The Glow-worm

After reading ?The Glow-worm? by Charlotte Smith, I almost felt a bond with the child in the poem. I can remember how I enjoyed playing outside on a spring evening when I was young. I found it completely amazing to see a bug with a glowing butt. I would run around my backyard, trying to catch as many as I could. When it was time to go inside, I would put my new pets in a jar that I kept outside in my garage with holes on the top big enough so that the lightening bugs could breathe, but small enough so they could not get out. Like the in the poem, my ?glow-worms? would die after a day or two.

However, I did not share the same feelings as the child in the poem. The way I coped with my loss is that I would go out the very next night to capture a replacement or two.

Being introduced to something new is always an experience, no matter it being good or bad. Facing the loss of that something new is quite an experience as well. The child in the poem gets to witness a wonder of nature, and it completely astonishes him. Smith begins to describe this as she calls the bug his ?glittering prize? and a ?lucid treasure?. But this astonishment quickly becomes complete devastation when the child discovers that the light of his ?glow-worm? had burnt out. Smith does an excellent job of summarizing the child?s emotions by saying, ?so turn the world?s bright joys to cold and blank disgust?. I can relate to this in terms of life itself, but not necessarily in regards to the lightening bugs that I used to play catch with. I have learned over the years that while I may be presented with something bright, the light usually dims and I have to start over again.