8221; In this line, the author’s mindset is when he was younger. He believed that winter was an accident, something that happened by mistake and was not meant to be. The tone of this piece is sentimental, and solemn. The author is talking about how happiness dies in the everlasting winter. His misery is bottled up, forced under “a lid covering its own despair.” However, summer paints its own colorful “canvas.” His mind returns to carefree days, and equates summer with life. In conclusion, both Summer and Winter by Mary Shelley, and Winter and Summer by Stephen Spender discuss the transition of both seasons. Both poets allude to this transition in different ways, Shelley beginning with summer and Spender with winter. This affects how each view the changeover of seasons. While both poets discuss the transition, Spender examines the seasons in more detail, with more description and feeling. The dying of nature is the underlying theme in both poems. Shelley begins with nature delighted in summer, and ends with birds dying and fish frozen under ice. For a simple poem, Shelley gets her point across. Spender begins with an everlasting winter, continues on to the rebirth of summer, and ends once again with winter. Shelley is more understated in her views, and Spender is powerful in his opinions of the seasons. Spender succeeds in passionately describing what his “inner eye” sees, while Shelley blandly shows what is obvious about winter and summer. ...
