Nature—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882)

Nature

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,

   Leads by the hand her little child to bed,

   Half willing, half reluctant to be led,

   And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door,

   Nor wholly reassured and comforted

   By promises of others in their stead,

   Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So Nature deals with us, and takes away

   Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

   Leads us to rest so gently, that we go

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,

   Being too full of sleep to understand

   How far the unknown transcends the what we know. 

 

1)    Substantiate the feelings of the child being led to bed.

         

According to Longfellow, the child is reluctant to go to bed leaving his playthings on the floor. His eyes are still on them and he is not assured of the promises, which his mother makes, in return for his obedience. He thinks that his broken playthings are much real than her promises.

2)    Why does the child ‘still gazing at them...’?

The child is besotted to his playthings, which he doesn’t want to lose at any cost. Here playthings mean all that belong to the world and the child symbolises man. Thus, the poet has merely underlined human infatuation with this line.

3)    How does Nature prepare us for ultimate rest?

Just as a mother takes a reluctant child to bed taking him away from his playthings, similarly Nature takes away from us our attributes like strength, beauty, intelligence etc, without our knowledge. In this way it takes us gently towards the final rest i.e. death.

4)    What do you mean by the phrase ‘Too full of sleep’?

At night when the child is tired, he needs rest. Similarly, after having lived a full life, a man becomes old and feeble and he requires rest in the form of death.  As the child before going to bed is dull and heavy so is man at the time of death—fatigued and devoid of reason.

5)    ‘By promises of others in their stead’ Explain.

While leading her child to bed, a mother promises him that she would provide him with better toys against the one, which is broken. Similarly, without speaking to us directly Nature brings death so that we may be heir to things worthwhile in heaven against things we possess on earth.

6)    ‘How far the unknown transcends the what we know...’ Substantiate.

At the time of one’s old age, a person is so tired and feeble that he cannot comprehend the unknown and the infinite reaches of the force that governs our lives and destiny.

So long a man lives on the earth he is confined in a finite world because his knowledge is limited to the world around him beyond which he knows next to nothing.   

7)    Gist of the poem. OR Central  idea.

The sonnet is an allegorical representation of man as a child and Nature as a mother. Man builds many encumbrances in this world just as a child who is attached to its playthings. Both are reluctant to sever ties off their beloved attachments. However, night comes to a child as death to a man and so both are eventually led to rest.

Worldly attachments are such as man forgets about his loftier gains in heaven beyond this temporal life and death. It is much similar to a child who is not content with his mother’s promises of better playthings after rest. However, at the end, it is the eternal design that prevails upon us and we submit to its bidding.