Lines Written In Early Spring

In "Lines Written in Early Spring", Wordsworth achieves the goal he sets for himself in his "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" - "to choose situations from common life, and to relate or describe them...in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination".
Wordsworth describes Nature as being a composer, creating a symphony of "blended notes". The scene appears to be entirely sweet and pleasant, and yet gives way to "sad thoughts" in the speaker's mind. The speaker observes that all of Nature's creations appear to be enjoying themselves - the flowers "enjoy" the air they breathe, the birds take pleasure in their movements, as do the "budding twigs". The speaker recognizes that man is also one of Nature's creations - "To her fair works did Nature link/The human soul that through me ran" (lines 5-6). However, man is also a creator, and can create himself ("What man has made of man" - line 8). Man's "self creation" goes against Nature's "plan" that all natural things should enjoy themselves, as man does not necessarily take pleasure in every moment of life. This thought causes the speaker himself to "grieve" - thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The opening stanza of William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” sets the tone for the underlying theme of the poem: Wordsworth’s narrator reclining in a grove where his thoughts are allowed to flow uninterrupted in what Wordsworth describes as “In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts / Bring sad thoughts to the mind.” (3-4). Importantly, these last two lines of the first quatrain easily catch a reader off guard. The quiet and descriptively serene setting seems to have brought Wordsworth’s narrator to a state of uninhibited inward contemplation of the external civilized world, and found this subject of thought emotionally disturbing. Indeed, one of Romanticism’s greatest virtues is found in its appreciation for intimate and emotional deliberation, and Wordsworth, staying true to what seems to be an inherit disposition, finds himself overtaken by his otherwise distracted worries thanks to the peaceful setting in which he finds himself in “Lines Written in Early Spring”.
It is the second stanza of William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” that we are given the theme of the poem when Wordsworth writes “And much it grieved my heart to think / What man has made of man.” (7 and 8). Wordsworth, in his reflection of “What man has made of man” (8), is describing how mankind, though civilized, has an innate spiritual connection to “Nature” and “her fair works” (4). Essentially, Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” revolves around this Romantic theme of how beautiful and essential our intrinsic connection to nature is, and how unfortunate and painful our self-inflicted disconnection has become. Wordsworth writes in “Lines Written in Early Spring” of how nature offers a wholesome and natural lifestyle that Wordsworth feels has been lost to the pointlessness and monotonous of civilization and the pursuit of contemporary capitalistic gain.
The following three stanzas of William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” describe the natural scenery around Wordsworth’s narrator as he sits in his emotionally sensitive mood, contemplating how life in the forest seems so beautiful and satisfying compared to life in civilization. Wordsworth goes on to describe what he sees as “pleasure” as “every flower / Enjoys the air it breathes” (11-12), and the birds that hopped and played around him were written with every “least motion which they made” (15) “seemed a thrill of pleasure” (16). Wordsworth goes so far as to describe “pleasure” in the very “budding twigs” (17) that spread their leaves to catch the “breezy air” (18). Wordsworth sees blissful life and vitality all around him as he sits in the glade, so ignorant of factories, human waste and conflict, that these natural creatures have achieved a state of paradise by simply existing as nature had intended: free of civilization and in a state of natural grace. It is this lifestyle that Wordsworth is jealous of and wishes that mankind could somehow return to in much the same way he would later describe in “The World is Too Much With Us” (1807). It is also this lifestyle that gives Wordsworth reason to pity mankind for their empty pursuits and meaningless lifestyles.
The final stanza concludes William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” with the lines “If such be Nature's holy plan, / Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?” (22-24); not only repeating the eighth line of “What man has made of man” (8) in the last, but also driving home Wordsworth’s main theme of “Lines Written in Early Spring”. To Wordsworth, “Natures holy plan” (22) is for mankind to live as an intricate part of nature, surrendering to quiet cottages and subsistence farming, away from the bleak and pointless miseries of city life. Man, in “Lines Written in Early Spring”, has successfully perverted his nature and is so condemned to the incomplete and aimless existence of civilization. Wordsworth “lament(s) / What man has made of man” (23-24) because “Nature”, a divine and motherly deity-like figure, had intended much more for mankind, pleasure and happiness in a wonderful natural lifestyle, but they have estranged themselves from their natural roots and have so essentially destroyed themselves in their pointless aims of contemporary pursuits.
William Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” was one of Wordsworth’s first Romantic poems, but, thanks to its depth and spirited writing, “Lines Written in Early Spring” could also be argued as not only one of Wordsworth’s best works of literary Romanticism, but also possessing some of the greatest lines of Romantic philosophy (i.e. “What man has made of man” (8 and 24)). “Lines Written in Early Spring” encompasses Romanticism almost entirely, and Wordsworth’s writing would continue for a lifetime afterwards. In many ways, “Lines Written in Early Spring” would set the tone for Wordsworth’s poety; Wordsworth thereafter wrestling with the same theme of “Lines Written in Early Spring” and lamenting civilization and “What man has made of man.”