On Reading a Book on Common Wild Flowers
On Reading a Book on Common Wild Flowers - meaning Summary
Childhood Love of Wildflowers
Kavanagh remembers common wildflowers from his rural childhood, recalling playful, tactile interactions with sow thistles, fleabane and other plants. He contrasts knowing them by sight and affection before learning their names, then finds that naming them in adulthood purifies a corner of his mind. The poem treats memory and simple contact with nature as a way to recover free, spacious moments removed from desire and moralizing.
Read Complete AnalysesO the prickly sow thistle that grew in the hollow of the Near Field. I used it as a high jump coming home in the evening – A hurdle race over the puce blossoms of the sow thistles. Am I late? Am I tired? Is my heart sealed From the ravening passion that will eat it out Till there is not one pure moment left? O the greater fleabane that grew at the back of the potato-pit. I often trampled through it looking for rabbit burrows! The burnet saxifrage was there in profusion And the autumn gentian – I knew them all by eyesight long before I knew their names. We were in love before we were introduced. Let me not moralize or have remorse, for these names Purify a corner of my mind; I jump over them and rub them with my hands, And a free moment appears brand new and spacious Where I may live beyond the reach of desire.
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