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The Eolian Harp Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com The Eolian Harp POEM TEXT 37 Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, 38 Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold 1 composed at clevedon, somersetshire 39 The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, 40 And tranquil muse upon tranquility: 2 My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined 41 Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, 3 Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is 42 And many idle flitting phantasies, 4 To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown 43 Traverse my indolent and passive brain, 5 With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved 44 As wild and various as the random gales Myrtle, 45 That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! 6 (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) 7 And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, 46 And what if all of animated nature 8 Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve 47 Be but organic Harps diversely framed, 9 Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be) 48 That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps 10 Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents 49 Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, 11 Snatched from yon bean-field! and the 50 At once the Soul of each, and God of all? world so hushed! 12 The stilly murmur of the distant Sea 51 But thy more serious eye a mild reproof 13 Tells us of silence. 52 Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts 53 Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject, 14 And that simplest Lute, 54 And biddest me walk humbly with my God. 15 Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! 55 Meek Daughter in the family of Christ! 16 How by the desultory breeze caressed, 56 Well hast thou said and holily dispraised 17 Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, 57 These shapings of the unregenerate mind; 18 It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs 58 Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break 19 Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings 59 On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring. 20 Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes 60 For never guiltless may I speak of him, 21 Over delicious surges sink and rise, 61 The Incomprehensible! save when with awe 22 Such a soft floating witchery of sound 62 I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; 23 As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve 63 Who with his saving mercies healèd me, 24 Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, 64 A sinful and most miserable man, 25 Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, 65 Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess 26 Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, 66 Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid! 27 Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! 28 O! the one Life within us and abroad, 29 Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, SUMMARY 30 A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, 31 Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— Written at Clevedon in the county of Somersetshire 32 Methinks, it should have been impossible The speaker begins by addressing a thoughtful companion Sara, 33 Not to love all things in a world so filled; whose cheek is resting on his arm. He notes how pleasant it is 34 Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air to sit outside their cottage where jasmine and myrtle flowers 35 Is Music slumbering on her instrument. grow (adding that these flowers are appropriate symbols of innocence and love), to watch the clouds go from being brightly 36 And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope lit to a sadder, darker shade, and to watch the bright evening star (which, he adds, is an appropriate symbol of wisdom) shine in the sky across from the clouds. He notes how pleasant the ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 1 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com scent is from the nearby bean-field and how quiet their the gifts of peace, of this cottage, and of Sara, whom the surroundings are—the sound of the far-off sea is so hushed and speaker sincerely values. gentle that it seems more like silence than noise. The speaker then turns his attention to a stringed instrument, a lute, that is sitting on a windowsill in the cottage. When the THEMES wandering breeze touches the lute's strings, the lute makes a sweet sound, just like a mischievous girl who complains so THE UNITY OF THE NATURAL WORLD sweetly when her lover touches her that her complaints make The poem’s title, “The Eolian Harp,” refers to a him want to keep going. When the wind blows on the strings stringed instrument that gives out music when more strongly, the long notes fall and rise in pitch, making a touched by a breeze. The speaker uses this instrument as a soft, airy melody of the kind that, the speaker imagines, elves metaphor for all living things: just as the instrument comes would make on evening voyages in ships blown by gentle alive when moved by the wind, the speaker proposes that all breezes from Fairy-Land. In Fairy-Land, the speaker imagines, nature comes alive when animated by a spiritual force. And music is always playing around the honey-filled flowers in wild, because it is the same spiritual force that gives life to all things, changing melodies, like birds of paradise flying freely without the speaker suggests that there may be an underlying unity to stopping or setting down. The speaker then exclaims that all of creation—a thought he believes, at least at first, should human beings and the natural world around them share a single inspire great joy. source of life, that animates everything that moves and in fact is the soul of all living things. This force can be sensed indirectly, The speaker begins by thinking about a lute that makes music as if it were the color of sound or the sound of light, and it when the breeze blows. When the lute’s strings are touched by creates pattern and order in our thoughts as well as a sense of the passing breeze, they vibrate and produce sweet notes. joy everywhere. The speaker believes you cannot help loving After using various images to describe the lute’s music, the everything in existence in a world that is filled with such a speaker suddenly exclaims, “O! the one Life within us and vibrant source of life, where the moving air makes music and abroad,” suggesting that all human beings and all of the natural still air is simply resting, but retains the potential to move and world they inhabit share a single source of life. make music. The speaker then uses the image of the lute as a metaphor for Addressing Sara again, the speaker stretches out the way he this idea of a single source of life. He compares all of nature to sometimes stretches out on a slope halfway up the nearby hill many “organic,” or living, harps that come alive when stirred by at noon, while he half-closes his eyes and watches the “one intellectual breeze,” just as many musical harps would sunbeams sparkle like diamonds on the ocean and calmly thinks come alive with sound if they were touched by the same about the experience of being calm. Many thoughts come into physical breeze. The “intellectual breeze” is a single spiritual the speaker's mind without his trying to think of them and force that acts as the “Soul of each” thing in nature. The fact without his being able to hold on to them. Many thoughtless that all living things—human or otherwise—draw life from the images also flow out of his imagination and dart through his same source and share the same soul indicates that there is a lazy, relaxed mind, images that are as unpredictable and diverse fundamental unity to all of nature. as the unpredictable winds that blow on the strings of the lute. The speaker reacts at first with joy at the idea that all living The speaker then wonders to himself if all things in nature things are connected in this way. When the speaker suggests could be thought of as living harps, crafted in different shapes, that there is “one Life” animating all of nature, he says this life that come alive when a single spiritual force animates them. creates “joyance everywhere.” The speaker also thinks it should This spiritual force acts both as the soul of each living thing and be “impossible” not to “love all things in a world so filled” with as the God of the whole natural world. this source of life. Seeing all things as sharing one life should fill every person with joy and love. In the final section, however, the The speaker then notices that Sara is looking critically at him, speaker distances himself from this view (see our next indicating that she disapproves of his unholy speculations discussion of the theme of “God and Nature”). about God, and urging him to adopt a more orthodox view of God. He praises her as a faithful follower of the Christian God Where this theme appears in the poem: and says she has correctly criticized his unholy ideas, which are attractive but ultimately meaningless philosophical • Lines 14-19 speculations. The speaker acknowledges that he can never • Lines 28-35 speak entirely correctly about God, who cannot be fully • Lines 46-50 understood, except when he praises God with heartfelt faith.
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