William Wordsworth Essay, Research Paper

In his poem, "Lines Written in the Early Spring," William Wordsworth gives us insight into his views of the destruction of nature. Using personification, he makes nature seem to be full of life and happy to be living. Yet, man still is destroying what he sees as "Nature?s holy plan" (8).

The entire poem is about the interaction between nature and man. Wordsworth is clearly not happy about the things that man has done to the world. He describes Nature in detail in the second and third stanzas when he personifies the periwinkle and the flowers. He is thinking about the bad things that man has done to nature and he wants the reader to sit back and think about the fact that there used to be something so beautiful and alive, and because of man?s ignorance and impatience, there is not a lot left. He also wants him to go sit in his own grove and actually see what is living and breathing and whether or not he enjoys it. Wordsworth makes it seem appealing to want to go and do this through his descriptions and thoughts, so that you get a feeling of what is there and what is being lost. He makes the reader want to go and see if those things, the budding twigs, the hopping birds, and the trailing periwinkle, really do exist and if they really are as alive as he says.

Wordsworth?s line "What man has made of man" (7) refers to what human men are doing to the other man on Earth, Nature, whom man is fighting for the top spot. To Wordsworth, Nature is alive and has feelings, the same as the human man. He proves this by making everything so full of life and happy to be alive, such as the little birds, throughout the poem, starting from the first stanza to the last. In the first stanza, he is listening to the sounds of Nature while he is relaxing. He describes everything around him in the rest of the poem.

Wordsworth gives life to everything in this poem. He sees periwinkle, trailing its wreaths through the primrose tufts, flowers around him that are alive, and enjoying every breath that they take. He also sees little birds hopping and playing. He cannot understand what they are thinking. He does not understand why the birds like to hop and play, and why their simple motions give them such great happiness. But on the other hand, the birds may even be thinking about how man?s children hop and play, and they might not understand what man is thinking and why that gives them pleasure. The children might not understand why destroying Nature makes man happy. In a way, the birds represent that man?s children can go into the forest and see the beauty of what surrounds them, and they only need to run and play to be happy. The children do not see the bad, they just see the pretty flowers and the twigs that are growing and that everything is happy where it is. They are too in tune with Nature to understand that one day they are going to be contributors in the destruction of it.

While he is thinking about the happiness of the birds, he has to force himself to remember the pleasure that was there before man destroyed it. He realizes that before man, everything in nature was as happy as the birds and plants that are living in the grove that he is sitting in. If man could only realize exactly what he is doing to nature, he could be as happy as the things that surround him. He says, "And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there" (7). This relates to his reader that the budding leaves enjoyed that breeze that went through, and that in general, there is pleasure in everything in that Nature does.

Wordsworth?s main point is that nature is precious, from the budding twigs that fan themselves to catch the warm sunshine, to the flowers that breathe, and enjoy breathing. When he first brings up the thoughts of what man is doing to man, he puts it into a statement which says that he cannot change the past mistakes that man has made. When he again says that line in the last stanza, it is a question, as if asking if it is ok to think about and to regret man?s decisions. He seems to be asking if it is really what man wants, to kill the Nature that he grew up with and that his children will grow up with. He poses that question to everyone who reads the poem. Imagine how much of Nature was destroyed when Wordsworth wrote this poem, and now look at what is gone and compare it. There is not going to be a lot of groves left like the one that he is sitting in if man continues to destroy them.