Response to "The Gladness of Nature

The Gladness of Nature
by William Cullen Bryant
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den, And the wilding bee hums merrily by. The clouds are at play in the azure space And their shadows at play on the bright-green vale, And here they stretch to the frolic chase, And there they roll on the easy gale. There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea. And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, On the leaping waters and gay young isles; Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

Response to Poem:

I chose to write about the poem The Gladness of Nature because it was very uplifting and positive.

In the first stanza the poem begins by asking why we are so sad when the world around us looks so happy. She explains how everything around us is beautiful and implies that we look at every thing negatively even though its not all that bad.

In the next stanza she talks about the ear pleasing sounds of birds, little burrowing squirrels, and buzzing bees to show how happy all the animals are. I think that the author picked these animals because birds represent soaring above new heights, squirrels represent that even though you may be below the rest (how squirrels burrow under the ground) you can still live contently, and bees because they have a lot of work just as we do and they remain positive.

She goes on in to the third stanza to describe how non-living things like clouds and shadows are frolicking and happy. I think she is comparing clouds and shadows to tough times. I believe she used this metaphor because even when we feel like we are in the dark or in a rough patch, if we just stop and look around in reality nothing is trying to bring us down; even our own shadows are smiling at us!

Stanza four talks mostly about plants such as the leaves of an aspen bower, beechen trees, fruit, flowers and then talks about a brook leading to the sea. She compare gladness with plants because even though they face harsh weather, and sometimes struggle to survive, they still remain beautiful and look as if they are as happy as ever.

The last stanza is basically about the sun casting smiles with his rays over earth. I think she makes a whole stanza about the sun to emphasize that it is the reason for nature and one thing can make a whole world of nature smile. I think that she is implying that if just one person smiles constantly and remains positive a chain reaction takes place make everyone glad.

The point of this poem is if nature is so positive, why can’t humans be? It mainly talked about how we should be happy because nature and the world around us is constantly smiling at us. I think what William Cullen Bryant is getting at is that we are living in a beautiful world full of positive things and we drown them in negativity.