The American poet Mary Oliver published "Wild Geese" in her seventh collection, Dream Work, which came out in 1986. The poem's speaker urges readers to open themselves up to the beauty of nature. While people focus on their own petty struggles, the speaker points out, the natural world moves along effortlessly, free as a flock of geese passing overhead. The poem celebrates nature's grandeur—and its ability to remind people that, after all, they're part of something vast and meaningful.

• Read the full text of “Wild Geese”

• “Wild Geese” Summary

• “Wild Geese” Themes

  • 

    The Comfort and Wonder of Nature

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-18
  • 

    Human Vulnerability and Suffering

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-6
    • Lines 14-18

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Wild Geese”

  • Lines 1-3

    You do not ...
    ... the desert, repenting.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 4-7

    You only have ...
    ... world goes on.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-13

    Meanwhile the sun ...
    ... heading home again.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 14-16

    Whoever you are, ...
    ... and exciting —

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 17-18

    over and over ...
    ... family of things.

    

    

    

    

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• “Wild Geese” Symbols

  • 

    Geese

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 12-18: “Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, / are heading home again. / Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.”

• “Wild Geese” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “You do not have to”
    • Line 2: “You do not have to”
    • Line 5: “love,” “loves”
    • Line 6: “Tell me,” “tell you”
    • Line 7: “Meanwhile”
    • Line 8: “Meanwhile”
    • Line 12: “Meanwhile”
    • Line 17: “over,” “over”

  • Assonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “You do,” “to”
    • Line 3: “through,” “desert, repenting”
    • Line 4: “You”
    • Line 6: “mine”
    • Line 7: “Meanwhile”
    • Line 8: “rain”
    • Line 9: “landscapes”
    • Line 10: “prairies,” “deep trees”
    • Line 12: “Meanwhile,” “wild,” “geese,” “high,” “clean”
    • Line 13: “home”
    • Line 14: “no,” “lonely”
    • Line 15: “itself,” “imagination”
    • Line 16: “like,” “exciting”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “not,” “on,” “knees”
    • Line 3: “for,” “hundred,” “miles,” “through,” “desert, repenting”
    • Line 4: “only,” “have,” “let,” “soft,” “animal,” “of”
    • Line 5: “love”
    • Line 6: “me,” “despair, yours,” “will tell,” “mine”
    • Line 7: “Meanwhile,” “world,” “on”
    • Line 8: “Meanwhile,” “sun,” “clear pebbles,” “rain”
    • Line 9: “moving,” “across,” “landscapes”
    • Line 10: “over,” “prairies,” “deep,” “trees”
    • Line 11: “mountains,” “rivers”
    • Line 12: “Meanwhile,” “wild,” “clean blue,” “air”
    • Line 13: “are,” “heading home”
    • Line 14: “Whoever,” “are,” “matter,” “how,” “lonely”
    • Line 15: “world,” “offers itself,” “imagination”
    • Line 16: “calls,” “like,” “wild,” “geese,” “harsh,” “exciting”
    • Line 17: “over,” “announcing,” “your,” “place”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 2-3: “You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”
    • Lines 4-5: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body /     love what it loves.”
    • Lines 15-18: “the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.”

  • End-Stopped Line

    

    

    

    

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    Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “good.”
    • Line 3: “repenting.”
    • Line 5: “loves.”
    • Line 6: “mine.”
    • Line 7: “on.”
    • Line 9: “landscapes,”
    • Line 10: “trees,”
    • Line 11: “rivers.”
    • Line 12: “air,”
    • Line 13: “again.”
    • Line 14: “lonely,”
    • Line 15: “imagination,”
    • Line 16: “exciting —”
    • Line 18: “things.”

  • Asyndeton

    

    

    

    

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    Where asyndeton appears in the poem:

    • Lines 9-11: “moving across the landscapes, / over the prairies and the deep trees, / the mountains and the rivers.”
    • Lines 15-16: “the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese”

  • Juxtaposition

    

    

    

    

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    Where juxtaposition appears in the poem:

    • Lines 6-7: “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on.”
    • Line 8: “the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain”
    • Line 10: “the prairies and the deep trees”
    • Line 11: “the mountains and the rivers”

• “Wild Geese” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Repenting
  • Pebbles
  • Prairies
  • (Location in poem: Line 3: “through the desert, repenting.”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Wild Geese”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Wild Geese” Speaker

• “Wild Geese” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Wild Geese”

• More “Wild Geese” Resources

  • External Resources

    • An Interview with Mary Oliver — Watch a rare interview with Mary Oliver from 2015, only a few years before she died.

    • Mary Oliver Reads the Poem — Watch Mary Oliver give a public reading of "Wild Geese."

    • Helena Bonham Carter Reads the Poem — To hear a different take on the poem, listen to the actor Helena Bonham Carter read "Wild Geese" and talk about the uses of poetry during hard times.

    • More About Mary Oliver — To learn more about Mary Oliver, take a look at this brief overview of her life and work.

    • Celebrating the Poet — Check out this article from The New Yorker, in which the writer Rachel Syme sings Oliver's praises and looks back at her prolific career in the aftermath of her death.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Mary Oliver

    • Good-Bye Fox

    • The Black Walnut Tree

    • The Journey

    • The Summer Day

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