Foresight
Foresight - context Summary
Published in 1807
Wordsworth’s short pastoral poem addresses a sibling, urging her to spare strawberry blossoms so they may become fruit later. The speaker contrasts transient flowers that can be plucked with the strawberry’s promise of ripe berries, privileging patience and foresight over immediate gratification. Set in a simple rural scene, the poem links small domestic restraint to future reward and reflects a gentle, conversational voice concerned with nature’s cycles.
Read Complete AnalysesThat is work of waste and ruin-- Do as Charles and I are doing! Strawberry-blossoms, one and all, We must spare them--here are many: Look at it--the flower is small, Small and low, though fair as any: Do not touch it! summers two I am older, Anne, than you. Pull the primrose, sister Anne! Pull as many as you can. --Here are daisies, take your fill; Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower: Of the lofty daffodil Make your bed, or make your bower; Fill your lap, and fill your bosom; Only spare the strawberry-blossom! Primroses, the Spring may love them-- Summer knows but little of them: Violets, a barren kind, Withered on the ground must lie; Daisies leave no fruit behind When the pretty flowerets die; Pluck them, and another year As many will be blowing here. God has given a kindlier power To the favoured strawberry-flower. Hither soon as spring is fled You and Charles and I will walk; Lurking berries, ripe and red, Then will hang on every stalk, Each within its leafy bower; And for that promise spare the flower!
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