Cities and Thrones and Powers
Cities and Thrones and Powers - meaning Summary
Persistence Despite Mortality
Kipling contrasts the brief, oblivious life of a daffodil with the apparent durability of cities and institutions. The poem argues that Time renews and obscures change, prompting successive generations to mistake temporary continuance for permanence. Human beings, like flowers, are made "blind" and confident by Time, so even in death we reassure ourselves that our works endure. The tone is cautionary about complacent pride in supposed immortality.
Read Complete AnalysesCities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again. This season's Daffodil, She never hears, What change, what chance, what chill, Cut down last year's; But with bold countenance, And knowledge small, Esteems her seven days' continuance, To be perpetual. So Time that is o'er -kind, To all that be, Ordains us e'en as blind, As bold as she: That in our very death, And burial sure, Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith, "See how our works endure!"
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