George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” delivers a religious message of hope and salvation within an extremely well-crafted poem. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker addresses God, who created and gave so much to man, through man has lost it all and now has falling onto a state decayed and deprived existence. The speaker than asks if he may rise as the birds do, and join the Lord, and wishes to sing of the victories of God, and His of glorious triumphs. Through all of this, the speaker will be furthered in his flight. The second stanza starts with the Speaker saying that even from an early age his life has been mired in sorrow mixed with sickness and shame. Nevertheless, the Lord has punished sin, but now the Speaker has become weak and thin. The Speaker asks to be combined with Christ and feel the victory over sin. The Speaker says “For, if I imp my wing on thine” (Line 19), Imp meaning to, “Repair a damaged feather in (the wing or tail of a trained hawk) by attaching part of a new feather” (Imp def.2). This use of the word imp shows that and old part of the Speaker is replaced and made new by God. Through this release of affliction the Speaker can now be lifted close to God. Herbert shows that Christ has freed Man from the struggle against sin, with its affliction and weakness, and through this Man can rise up and grow closer to God.
Herbert presents the battle between Man and Sin, and God’s ultimately defeating Sin and lifting Man up out of this battle to be Him. The Speaker laments Man’s (Adam’s) fall from the perfection that was the Garden of Eden: Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, / Though foolishly he lost the same”(Line 1-2). The fall of Adam is presented as the beginning of the deterioration of the human...
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... “Easter Wings” is a powerful poem to read for it speaks directly to the inner most workings of the human soul.
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For example, one line, “Soon our pilgrimage will cease; Soon our happy hearts will quiver, with the melody of peace,” which is saying that one day we will die, and you can’t stop that. “Lay we every burden down; Grace our spirits will deliver, and provide a robe and a crown,” also reveals that you should appreciate what we’ve had, and what was given to us. This song is telling you, in every line, that you can’t live forever, but appreciate what you have, while you
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While we possess thee, thy changes ever lovely, thy vernal airs or majestic storms, thy vast creation spread at our feet, above, around us, how can we call ourselves unhappy? There is a brotherhood in the growing, opening flowers, love in the soft winds, repose in the verdant expanse, and a quick spirit of happy life throughout, with which our souls hold glad communion; but the poor prisoner was barred from these: how cumbrous the body felt, how alien to the inner spirit of man, the fleshy bars that allowed it to become slave of his fellows
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Edward Taylor’s Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold are similar in their approach with the illustration of how beautiful and magnificent God’s creations are to humankind. However, each poem presents tragic misfortune, such as the death of his own children in Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and the cold, enigmatic nature of human soul in Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. Taylor’s poems create an element of how cruel reality can be, as well as manifest an errant correlation between earthly life and spiritual salvation, which is how you react to the problems you face on earth determines the salvation that God has in store for you.
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He is almost sleeping while doing this. This creates a very powerful visual image. It epitomizes how the people left to grieve act. Many people stricken by death want to be left alone and bottle themselves up. The first few lines of the poem illustrate how deeply in sorrow the man is. This image should affect everyone. It should make the reader sympathize or even empathize with the man. Another main way he uses imagery is through the black bird or the raven. The presence of the bird is a bad omen. It is supposed to be followed by maleficent things. The bird is used to symbolize death figuratively and literally. The bird only says one word the entire poem. It repeats “nevermore.” This word can be interpreted multiple ways each time it is said. It is also possible that the bird is not talking. It is possible that the bird is an image created by
In George Herbert’s Man, Herbert gives homage to God, and the centrality of man. The main point of the poem assumes that since God is the greatest being of all, and God created humanity, then human beings are great as well - greater than credit is given. It focuses on the concept that man is a microcosm, or a small-scale model of the world, and that every part of the body has a facet of the world of which it is equal.
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