The Day-Dream - Part VII - Moral
The Day-Dream - Part VII - Moral - meaning Summary
Beauty Resists Moralizing
Tennyson addresses Lady Flora and questions the effort to extract a single moral from beauty. He asks whether a rose or a wildflower must serve a useful purpose, and argues that both Nature and Art offer multiple meanings. Individuals project interpretations according to their moods, so it would be restrictive to pin a fixed lesson onto a flower or a poem. The piece favors openness over moralizing.
Read Complete Analyses1 So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose? 2 But any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend; So ’twere to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end.
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