Animal Tranquility and Decay
Animal Tranquility and Decay - context Summary
Published in Lyrical Ballads
This short lyric, published in Lyrical Ballads (1800), presents a calm, elderly figure observed in a rural setting. The speaker notes how even hedgerow birds ignore him while his demeanor and gait show peaceful composure born of long patience. Youth view his serenity with envy, though the old man scarcely feels its intensity. The poem quietly enshrines patient, natural tranquility as a moral or spiritual state.
Read Complete AnalysesThe little hedgerow birds, That peck along the roads, regard him not. He travels on, and in his face, his step, His gait, is one expression: every limb, His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought.--He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he is one by whom All effort seems forgotten; one to whom Long patience hath such mild composure given, That patience now doth seem a thing of which He hath no need. He is by nature led To peace so perfect that the young behold With envy, what the Old Man hardly feels.
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