It Did Not Surprise Me
poem 39
It Did Not Surprise Me - meaning Summary
Calm Acceptance of Loss
The poem presents a speaker’s restrained response to departure or loss. Observing someone who leaves to seek a livelier life, the speaker claims no surprise and imagines the leaver as a young bird abandoning a nest. That image shifts into a darker possibility: the absence might be internal, a part of the self gone, even likened to a coffin in the heart. The tone balances acceptance and quiet wonder, questioning whether the loss matters and whether it belongs to the world or to the speaker’s own interior.
Read Complete AnalysesIt did not surprise me So I said or thought She will stir her pinions And the nest forgot, Traverse broader forests Build in gayer boughs, Breathe in Ear more modern God’s old fashioned vows This was but a Birdling What and if it be One within my bosom Had departed me? This was but a story What and if indeed There were just such coffin In the heart instead?
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