Nature

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1878

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Inevitability of Death

“Nature” uses as its thematic argument the reality of death. Gifted, or cursed, with the knowledge of mortality, humanity has long struggled with the inevitability of death and the search for life’s meaning. Longfellow published this poem during the last few years of his life; instead of focusing the poem on the morbid realities of death, he created a comforting allegory: Death is at once no more terrifying or unsettling than an earned, hard-day’s rest.

Within Longfellow’s approach to the inevitability of death, there is a balance between panic and surrender. The image of a child reluctant to go to bed, still distracted by all the toys of his long and busy day, offers that balance. As death grows closer, Nature lovingly and gently begins the hard work of separating us from our “toys,” the items that reward us during our lifetime, as we follow her to an earned night’s sleep. It can be argued that “Nature” is the reflection of a man who has lived a long and ample life for which death might come as a relief. From the perspective of a life well-lived, Longfellow offers the counsel that is at once clear and convincing as everybody understands the rewards of a good night’s sleep.

The Consolation of Nature

Longfellow sees Nature as a deeply caring spiritual energy at once as close and as distant as a loving parent. Given the title, a reader might assume some traipsing off into the abundant wilderness still on the outskirts of Longfellow’s busy Boston, perhaps some lyrical exploration of the nearby spaciousness of the Berkshires or the sublimity of the ocean. However, there are no trees, flowers, or waves within this poem. Like a mother who loves a child reluctant to head off to bed but unable to coax the child with words, Nature communicates without words at all.

For Longfellow, Nature is maternal. The gentle touch of the guiding hand (Line 2) suggests the ability of Nature to speak without words, to guide us without coercion. Nature, then, fulfills the traditional role assigned to the Christian God, at once loving and distant, at once compassionate and stern. Every day, Nature reminds those willing to see, that is the open-eyed and aware, that animation itself is ironic; for all its kinetics, every moment life edges closer to its termination. Nothing in nature lasts—sunrises, seasons, plants, animals, kings, and poets. Nature can offer only the gentle consolation that death is inevitable and ubiquitous. Head off to that sweet and elegant repose, Nature counsels, happy that tomorrow might bring transcendent unknowns. Nature counsels that, in death, we will at last know the secrets of the universe.

The Necessity of Mystery

“How far the unknown transcends the what we know” (Line 14). This line is nostalgic, reflecting the Renaissance rather than Longfellow’s era of Thomas Edison, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the emergence of America as a world power. Longfellow’s generation, postbellum America with its rediscovered optimism and embrace of technology and science, was uncomfortable with the notion of mystery. Mysteries were better perceived, the cultural logic went, as problems awaiting solutions.

“Nature” then restores the place of mystery, reenchants a universe rendered less complicated and more understandable. The sestet of the sonnet, the last six lines in which Longfellow proposes the wisdom he has to offer, suggests that there is a reality that transcends the reach of the senses and that renders ironic the assumption that science can reduce the universe into a set of immutable laws. Longfellow uses the image of the child to suggest rather than depict these unknowns. The poem argues, confronting what appears to be the absolute of death, that the concept of something transcendent cannot be abandoned.