The Everlasting Voices
The Everlasting Voices - meaning Summary
Longing Versus Weariness
The poem addresses persistent, alluring "everlasting Voices" and asks them to be still. The speaker hears these voices embodied in nature—birds, wind, shaken boughs, tide—but insists their summons troubles already aging hearts. The lines set up a quiet tension between eternal, impassioned forces and human weariness, pleading for silence so people may find rest. The repeated refrain underscores resignation rather than conquest of longing.
Read Complete AnalysesO sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more; Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore? O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.
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