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Ode on the Spring by Thomas Gray

Analysis

"Ode on the Spring" is a poem written by Thomas Gray. This poem is all about Spring and its beauties and wonders that it brings to the world. The first stanza speaks of the beautiful sunrises, the flowers blossoming, the birds singing and flying, and a great smell in the air. The second stanza is about sitting next to a bank during the season. The third speaks of all the insects wanting to pollinate. The fourth stanza goes back to him thinking about the season. The fifth then covers all the stanzas comparing himself and others like him to flies. He says that he is perhaps wasting his time in youth instead of doing more important things. However, he's still going to wait for the next Spring.

This poem is made up of five stanzas with ten lines in each. They rhyme as ABABCCDEED.

Poem

Ode on the Spring
By 

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro' life's little day,
In Fortune's varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone -
We frolic while 'tis May.
Next: Ode to Adversity