Explain with reference to the context the following lines: Must come and bide. And such are we? Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary ? That I can hope

 Explain with reference to the context the following lines:

(a) Must come and bide. And such are we?

Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary ?

That I can hope

Health, love friends, scope

In full for thee; can dream thou’lt find

Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!

Ans. Context: These lines are taken from the poem To An Unborn Pauper Child by Thomas Hardy.

Explanation: The poet feels the child would gladly find some enclosed land in the earth, where the child would stay without a tear or disquietude. But he is incapable to do this as he is as weak as the baby. He cannot change the common fate to a rare one. As he is unable to change the baby’s fate or to give warning of what is in store for it, he asks the child to come and dwell on the earth. And since humans are by nature happily optimistic, visionary and not given to reason, he can hope and wish that the baby, once it is born, will live in love, good health, friendship and possibilities galore. He dreams that the child will have joys which are rarely achieved by human beings.

In the last stanza, the poet prays that things may be better for the child. The terrible things may be applicable to any child born into the world. The poet has seen several disruptive events in the world. “Though skies spoutfire and blood and nations quake” might be a reference to the aerial warfare and blitzkrieg during the World War.

The poem is an “apostrophe”: A rhetorical device in the form of an address to someone not present. Many of the stanzas opens with injunctions and interjections. The poem makes use of alliterations such as, “hid heart”, “cease silently”, “birth-hour beckons”, “Travails and teens”,”surge and sigh” and “pending plan”. Time has been personified in the poem.

(b) All the earth and air

with thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lovely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow’d

Ans. Context: These lines are taken from the poem To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Explanation: The bird is like the poet who sings for the mankind from an unknown destination. Then the skylark is compared with the aristocratic maiden soothing her love laden soul with song. The singing of the bird has heavenly blessings. Then it is compared with the rose covered by the green leaves. So the bird though not seen properly is communicating with the audience in clear music.

The poet wishes that the bird should teach the mankind the heavenly happiness it enjoys. He also wants to know about the theme of the song of the bird. The poet also is curious to know about the reason behind such happiness and absence of sorrow. The bird knows only love but does not know the sadness inherited in the human love. Its love is sacred. The bird is given eternity. It is singing from time immemorial.

Then the poet contrasts the song of the bird with the woes of human being. Human wants are unlimited. Human wants never get fulfilled. The good songs of the human world are always accompanied with the saddest thoughts. So goes the beautiful description “our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts”. The poet wants to learn about the secret of the beauty of the skylark. The skylark is the scorner of the ground. It scorns the earth which is full of afflictions and miseries. The poet wants that the skylark should teach him half of the gladness it enjoys. He can learn from the bird and write poetry. Each stanza consists of four short lines and the last long line. The rhyme patter is very much similar in the poem.

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