A Man Young and Old: 10. His Wildness
A Man Young and Old: 10. His Wildness - meaning Summary
Memory Makes Solitary Wildness
The speaker longs to withdraw into the clouds because former companions have left or grown changed. Alone and sustained by memory, he imagines behaving oddly—calling out like a peacock, rocking a stone and singing it to sleep. The poem sketches how solitude and nostalgia produce eccentric, performative behaviors, turning a cultured past into private, quasi-childish or wild actions when social structures vanish.
Read Complete AnalysesO bid me mount and sail up there Amid the cloudy wrack, For peg and Meg and Paris' love That had so straight a back, Are gone away, and some that stay Have changed their silk for sack. Were I but there and none to hear I'd have a peacock cry, For that is natural to a man That lives in memory, Being all alone I'd nurse a stone And sing it lullaby.
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