lowers;”The winds that he might be referring to here might be the world weariness that makes us feel like the “world is too much with us”, and the “sleeping flowers” might be the people of the world which are still not “awake” from the sleep of religion. (The personification of “Sleeping flowers” could be seeds that haven’t yet become what they could be, much like people who are not yet alive to the beauty of nature and the beauty in them.) In line eight he ties all these thoughts together by stating that for all these reasons and “for everything, we are out of tune;” This line might be a clever way to portray the line itself being out of tune in the way we are out of tune with nature. The lines it is supposed to rhyme with all end in oon, as in moon, soon, and boon. So in making this line slightly out of synch in this way makes it out of tune with the rest of the poem. This might be an interesting way of using the structure of the poem to help convey his point. With the next line we see a subtle shift in the feel and rhyme structure of the poem. It becomes less descriptive and a new rhyme scheme begins which separates verses nine-fourteen from the rest of the poem. Verse nine reads, “It moves us not.-Great God! I’d rather be”, followed by another line which states, “A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn:” At first reading, “-Great God!” might seem like an exclamation, but when we close read this line it can be interpreted differently. By inserting the words “I’d rather be” where he does he alters the meaning. It seems as though it was a coy way of being blasphemous in a time where religion had a tight stranglehold on society. The line that follows is yet another sly reference to religion, “suckled on a creed outworn” seems to refer to a youth indoctrinated by the “creed” of relig...
