The Blackbird
The Blackbird - meaning Summary
Complacency Dulls Once-bright Song
Tennyson addresses a blackbird whose rich surroundings and abundance have stilled its earlier song. The poem contrasts a once-melodious voice with a present harshness, suggesting that comfort and plenty can corrupt art or effort. Seasonal imagery frames the moral: sing and make use of your powers while opportunity lasts, or risk being forced to perform poorly when need returns. The tone is admonitory and elegiac.
Read Complete AnalysesThe espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall. Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. A golden bill! the silver tongue, Cold February loved, is dry: Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, when young: And in the sultry garden-squares, Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares. Take warning! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.
This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed till 1842.
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