Analysis or summary of the poem to blossoms by Robert herrick?

Answer 1

Like all the great sages from Buddha to Blake, Herrick gazes upon the new blossoms of spring and sees all of life in their petals. He addresses the blossoms as "pledges," as if each were a promise from nature-a promise of fruitfulness, abundance, and vigor. If they are "fair," then nature itself is not only pretty, it is true and just.

Yet is it fair that in the very act of growth, these blossoms are setting themselves up to fall? And why do they have to fall quite so fast? Why are their lives so brief? Knowing of their eventual decay does not prevent Herrick from enjoying their fleeting moment of expansion. Joys may be passing; all the more reason to seize them.

Herrick sees the blossoms "blushing" as their colors deepen. The pink tinge of cherry blossom is transformed into the rising color of a modest human cheek.

In the day of the year, our life is but a few hours. Why should nature bring us forth only for our life to ebb away? Why should we be born only to die? Perhaps death makes life so meaningless we should hasten its end. Perhaps like the tormented biblical figure of Job, it would have been better if we had never been born.

Not so, chides Herrick in the final stanza, passing through this moment of sadness and doubt. The "lovely leaves" before him are like leaves from the book of Nature, in which he sees how the blossoms show that "all things have their end." Of all things, however-despite their apparent frailty-the blossoms are the most brave. Maybe this is because nothing and no one dares to be quite so bright, quite so vibrant.

When things show their pride, they fall. In Herrick's vision, the simple sight of spring blossom becomes the stuff of Greek tragedy, where death and disaster cannot be averted. Yet we judge a character such as Oedipus not by his ability to triumph over his destiny-but by his ability to meet it with stoicism, courage, and nobility. By doing so, his physical death becomes the foundation of his moral transcendence.

Notice how in the final stanza the word "pride" is paired with "glide." It is this word that dominates the concluding lines, rather than the final somber fact of the "grave." If we say the poem aloud, a subtle emphasis on "glide" conveys how a spirit of grace can transcend the mere fact of death.

Answer 2

The Flower' explains how people frequently view things that are new and criticise new ideas that others have - then as the new idea is circulated and distributed, as it becomes commonplace, they then embrace and copy or utilise it, perhaps artistic or industrial ideas - In Tennyson's day it was the beginning of the industrial revolution, so could be about things that emerged from this.