The Full Text of “Lines Written in Early Spring”
1I heard a thousand blended notes,
2While in a grove I sate reclined,
3In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
4Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
5To her fair works did Nature link
6The human soul that through me ran;
7And much it grieved my heart to think
8What man has made of man.
9Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
10The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
11And ’tis my faith that every flower
12Enjoys the air it breathes.
13The birds around me hopped and played,
14Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
15But the least motion which they made
16It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
17The budding twigs spread out their fan,
18To catch the breezy air;
19And I must think, do all I can,
20That there was pleasure there.
21If this belief from heaven be sent,
22If such be Nature’s holy plan,
23Have I not reason to lament
24What man has made of man?
The Full Text of “Lines Written in Early Spring”
1I heard a thousand blended notes,
2While in a grove I sate reclined,
3In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
4Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
5To her fair works did Nature link
6The human soul that through me ran;
7And much it grieved my heart to think
8What man has made of man.
9Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
10The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
11And ’tis my faith that every flower
12Enjoys the air it breathes.
13The birds around me hopped and played,
14Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
15But the least motion which they made
16It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
17The budding twigs spread out their fan,
18To catch the breezy air;
19And I must think, do all I can,
20That there was pleasure there.
21If this belief from heaven be sent,
22If such be Nature’s holy plan,
23Have I not reason to lament
24What man has made of man?
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Introduction
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"Lines Written in Early Spring" is English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's meditation on the harmony of nature—and on humanity's failure to follow nature's peaceful example. In the poem, written in 1798 and published in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, a speaker reclines in a lovely grove on a spring morning. The joy he perceives in the natural world, and his belief that his own soul is somehow intimately connected to that joy, leads him to mourn "what man has made of man"—in other words, the cruelty, selfishness, and fighting that characterize humanity. The poem argues that while humans are part of nature, they sure don't act like it.
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Summary
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I heard a thousand interwoven notes of birdsong while I lay in a grove, where I was enjoying the kind of mood in which happy thoughts remind you of sad ones.
Nature connected my soul to all the beautiful creatures around me—and I felt terribly sad to think about what humanity has done to itself.
Periwinkles grew through bunches of primroses under the green trees, and I believe that all flowers find joy in the very air they breathe.
Birds hopped playfully around me. I can't know what they think, but to me, it looked like all of their tiny movements gave them a shiver of pleasure.
The budding branches spread out like opening fans to catch the breeze. In spite of myself, I have to believe that they were taking pleasure in life, too.
If my belief in all this natural joy is heaven-sent, and if all I've perceived here is part of Nature's divine plan, doesn't it make sense that I should be sad about what humanity has done to itself?
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Themes
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Humanity vs. Nature
“Lines Written in Early Spring” presents nature as the spirit that moves every living thing. Nature unites all the creatures of the landscape in a shared sense of joy, making them part of one big, delighted entity. But as the speaker soaks up the lovely grove around him, he finds cause not just for celebration, but for grief; humanity, in his view, is indeed part of this natural splendor, but it sure hasn't been acting that way! Instead of following nature's example and existing in peace and harmony, people fight each other and destroy the natural environments in which they live. And in separating themselves from both the natural world and each other, the poem argues that human beings have lost their connection to the joy that is their birthright.
The speaker personifies both the creatures he sees around him and nature itself, suggesting that they’re all united in a single, joyful consciousness. In the grove where the speaker sits, twigs “spread out their fan,” flowers “enjoy the air,” and nature is a conscious force with a “holy plan.” All of these entities seem to be feeling the same delight.
The speaker also uses images of interweaving and intertwining to suggest that everything in nature is connected. He hears “a thousand blended notes” of birdsong, sees the periwinkle growing “through primrose tufts,” and speaks of the “link” with which nature connects his own soul to the natural beauties all around him. Not only is everything in nature inherently joyful, then, but everything also shares that joy—and that sharing is all part of the pleasure!
Humanity, meanwhile, fails to emulate nature’s model of interconnectivity and joy. Though the speaker feels that nature has made a “link” between the human soul and the natural world, he feels that humanity has betrayed that link. He twice laments “what man has made of man”—that is, how humans have abused and rejected their unity with the world, breaking from “Nature’s holy plan.” That nature’s plan is “holy” also suggests that he feels humans have severed not just an emotional connection to nature, but a spiritual one: a profound betrayal.
While the speaker doesn’t say outright “what man has made of man,” he doesn’t need to—and that’s the point! Even these simple words bring plenty of examples of painful human division to the reader’s mind, from war to poverty to plain old cruelty.
Nature, in this poem’s view, provides an example of interconnected, joyful harmony, a peaceful balance that every living thing takes part in. If human beings could just follow nature’s example, they too could share in that harmony—though, judging by “what man has made of man,” this is much easier said than done.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Lines Written in Early Spring”
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Lines 1-4
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind."Lines Written in Early Spring" begins right in the middle of its action, and right in the middle of its speaker's experience. Before readers knows who (or where) this speaker is, they're launched right into his senses with the words, "I heard a thousand blended notes."
Right from the start, there's a sense of collective harmony here. Those "thousand notes" feel like a luxurious rush of sound. The musicians making those notes, whatever or whoever they might be, are working together to "blend" their music, creating one song out of many notes. This feeling of delightful unity is going to be at the heart of the poem's philosophy.
That sense of mysterious unity gets clarified in the second line. Now the reader knows where this speaker is: in a "grove," under the trees. Perhaps, then, the music the speaker is hearing is birdsong.
The speaker's not even sitting up, but "reclined," lying back to better enjoy the chorus. This is an idyllic picture of spring bliss. Notice, too, how the long /oh/ assonance of "notes" and "grove" connects the song to the place it comes from. Everything is working beautifully together here.
But the speaker isn't just blissed out. He's "In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts / Bring sad thoughts to the mind." In other words, his happy thoughts actually remind him of some sad things. The pleasure he takes in this spring grove, it seems, isn't uncomplicated—though even its bittersweetness seems "sweet" to him.
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Lines 5-6
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran; -
Lines 7-8
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man. -
Lines 9-12
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes. -
Lines 13-16
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure. -
Lines 17-20
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there. -
Lines 21-24
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Symbols
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Spring
Spring is named only in the poem's title, but it plays a major symbolic role here. Spring generally represents rebirth, and the fact that the speaker's thoughts of joyful natural unity take place in the spring suggests that these thoughts are connected to the speaker's hopes for some kind of renewal.
The poem is filled with signs of spring even if it doesn't mention it directly. Notice how the birds and flowers of this poem are all emphatically "springy" creatures: new buds, fresh tufts of primroses, and hopping songbirds all call to mind the changing season. They also all share a deep pleasure in merely being alive. But in spite of the fact that humans are also connected to this pleasure, the speaker argues that they've pretty severely betrayed that connection.
While the speaker has cause to lament over this betrayal, he offers some hope by setting the poem in the season when what seemed to be dead in the winter comes back to life. In other words, while humans have forgotten their connection to nature, setting the poem during a season of rebirth suggests that they might just be able to regain it someday.
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
Much of the alliteration in "Lines Written in Early Spring" leans on one sound: /m/. This is the repeated sound that gives the poem's lament over "What man has made of man" its punch. That emphatic /m/, and the diacope on the word "man," draws attention to the speaker's belief that humanity's problems are all our own fault, the consequence of splitting ourselves off from the inherent joy of nature: "man" has only "man" to blame for the world's suffering.
Alliteration also gives both musicality and meaning to the gentler parts of the poem. Take a look at the patterns of sound in the third stanza:
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.The repetition of a /p/ followed by a /t/ in "primrose tufts" and "periwinkle trailed" matches sound to action: the sounds here intertwine just like the plants do. And the soft, repeated /f/ sound of "faith" and "flower" sounds rather like a breath of the "air" the speaker imagines those flowers enjoy. Later, the "budding" twigs that catch the "breezy" air carry in their /b/ sound the bursting roundness of the buds and the playful blows of the spring breeze.
Alliteration thus both evokes the harmony of nature and humanity's failure to live in that harmony.
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Assonance
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Enjambment
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Personification
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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"Lines Written in Early Spring" 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.
- Sate
- Fair
- Grieved
- Primrose tufts
- Bower
- Periwinkle
- 'Tis
- Lament
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An old-fashioned way of saying "sat."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Lines Written in Early Spring”
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Form
The 24 lines of "Lines Written in Early Spring" are broken up into six stanzas, each containing four lines (making them quatrains). These are also ballad stanzas—meaning they follow a simple ABAB rhyme scheme and have a specific meter (more on that in a moment).
This poem actually comes from an important collection called Lyrical Ballads, in which Wordsworth and his fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge resurrected old poetic traditions like the folk ballad. (See the Context section for more on this.) "Lines Written in Early Spring" is actually not just a ballad, but a lyrical ballad—meaning its pleasing form is meant to beautifully reflect the speaker's emotion.
That said, the poem isn't always consistent in following the ballad form. The ways in which this poem differs from standard ballads serve the speaker's larger meaning:
- In the poem's first, second, third, and sixth stanzas, three lines of iambic tetrameter (four da-DUMs) build up to a single line of iambic trimeter (three da-DUMs). That even, steady build followed by abrupt change fits in with the poem's reflections on how humanity has fallen out of step with natural rhythms.
- Meanwhile, the fourth and fifth stanzas, which describe the pure delight of the natural world, use more traditional ballad meter (alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter)—and their balance reflects the harmony they describe.
For more on this, head to the Meter section of this guide.
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Meter
"Lines Written in Early Spring" uses a couple of different metrical patterns. Most of the stanzas use three lines of iambic tetrameter (four da-DUMs) capped with a single line of iambic trimeter (three da-DUMs). Here's stanza 1 to show this how that looks in context:
I heard | a thou- | sand blend- | ed notes,
While in | a grove | I sate | reclined,
In that | sweet mood | when pleas- | ant thoughts
Bring sad | thoughts to | the mind.The meter isn't perfect; there's a spondee in the second foot of line 3 (a foot consisting of two stressed beats in a row, "sweet mood") and a trochee in the second foot of line 4 (a stressed beat followed by an unstressed beat, "thoughts to"). Small variations like these are pretty common in poetry, since they keep things from getting to stilted; overall, the iambic rhythm is strong.
In the fourth and fifth stanzas, however, something a little different happens. These stanzas use ballad meter—that is, alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, like this:
The bud- | ding twigs | spread out | their fan,
To catch | the bree- | zy air;
And I | must think, | do all | I can,
That there | was plea- | sure there.As the speaker reflects on the harmony of nature (and the disharmony of humanity), his rhythms match the movements of his mind. The more evenly-balanced ballad stanzas describe only the joys of nature. The stanzas that build up from tetrameter to a final line of trimeter, on the other hand, often have stings in their tails. The speaker's "sad thoughts" about "what man has made of man" feel particularly punchy because their lines, only three beats long, come to a surprise halt.
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Rhyme Scheme
This poem, like many that Wordsworth wrote, uses a simple rhyme scheme that hearkens back to traditional songs and ballads:
ABAB
Wordsworth valued plainness in language, and his easy pattern here suits his poem's philosophy of simple natural harmony. But as the reader has perhaps already noted, this rhyme scheme isn't totally uniform. In fact, the poem breaks from its own scheme in the very first stanza. Here, "notes" and "thoughts" almost rhyme, but not exactly—a type of matching known as slant rhyme.
This choice to kick the poem off with a rhyme that's just slightly off-kilter makes a lot of thematic sense. "Lines Written in Early Spring" is a poem about how humanity has fallen out of the natural rhythm of nature, and this first mismatched sound echoes that idea.
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Speaker
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This poem's speaker is a sensitive, thoughtful soul. He feels himself to be deeply connected to the world around him—so much so that his sense of natural joy becomes his "faith," his religion.
Perhaps because of his sensitivity, he also deeply feels the pains of the world. The beauty and pleasure he experiences on this spring morning reminds him that human life could be like this always, but isn't, because of human folly.
The reader may note that we're calling the speaker "he" here, though this person isn't gendered in the poem. We made this decision by drawing on some literary context. Wordsworth often wrote poetry in the first person, from a perspective that seems very much his own. One of his most famous works, the Prelude, is explicitly autobiographical, and shares many themes and ideas with this poem. We've thus decided to treat this speaker as an avatar for Wordsworth himself. But that's certainly not the only way to read this poem, and it's up to the reader to decide how to interpret the speaker here!
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“Lines Written in Early Spring” Setting
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As the title says, it's early spring in this poem's world—a time of birdsong and lush new growth. Looking around him as he lies at his ease in a beautiful grove, the speaker sees wildflowers, budding trees, and hopping birds. This is a landscape of freshness, joy, and renewal. Perhaps the setting's springiness reflects a quiet hope: spring, after all, follows winter, and even if humanity is living through some self-imposed darkness, there's still the chance that it will one day find new life through its connection to nature.
This setting also works on a very human scale. The speaker doesn't have to go and stand on a cliff and look out over a whole vista to feel his deep connection with nature. All he needs is a little grove with room to lie down in.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Lines Written in Early Spring”
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Literary Context
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the greatest thinkers and poets of the Romantic era. His sense of the holiness of nature, the spiritual depth of childhood, and the value of every human soul would forever change the literary landscape.
"Lines Written in Early Spring" is a poem from one of Wordsworth's most important works: Lyrical Ballads, a collaborative volume he wrote with his close friend (and fellow poet) Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This collection of poems resurrected the plain language and steady rhythms of the English ballad tradition, and it matched its subjects to its style. Wordsworth's poems focused on the simple joys of daily life in the countryside, while Coleridge's told folkloric tales of dangerous magic. All this was wildly innovative for the time, and stood in sharp stylistic contrast to the elegance of the previous generation of writers (like Alexander Pope).
This single, paradigm-changing volume is often credited as the official start of English Romanticism. This was an artistic movement during the first half of the 19th century that glorified emotion over reason and expressed deep awe for the natural world, a realm that the Romantics took as overwhelming in its magnificence. Romanticism was, at least in part, a response to the Industrial Revolution and Age of Enlightenment, which saw the increasing urbanization of society and reliance on scientific inquiry. "Lines Written in Early Spring" reflects these Romantic ideas—championing the joyful harmony of nature and lamenting the mess that human beings have apparently made of things.
Wordsworth had a tremendous influence on generations of poets who followed him—though the younger Romantic poets, like Keats and Byron, became disenchanted with him as he lost the fervor of his youth and settled into a comfortably conservative old age. By the time Queen Victoria made him Poet Laureate in 1843, his best and most important work was behind him. That work nonetheless lives on; poems like "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" remain some of the most famous and influential in the world to this day.
Historical Context
Wordsworth lived through a chaotic time in European history. During his youth, he traveled to France in the midst of the Revolution, when citizens rose up and toppled their despotic monarchy. Like many of his Romantic contemporaries, Wordsworth was at first inspired by this rebellion, seeing it as the beginning of a new age of liberty. But he was soon disillusioned and horrified by the bloody excesses of the Terror, when the newly-installed French Republic mercilessly beheaded countless political prisoners.
England, too, went through a crisis of leadership during Wordsworth's lifetime, when King George III's health deteriorated and his shiftless son George IV was installed as Prince Regent. The young Regent's slothful, self-indulgent, pleasure-loving ways were seen as an insult to his struggling people—especially rural people, who endured years of famine in the early 19th century.
Wordsworth's first-hand experience of the dangers of revolution made him uneasy with the anti-monarchical political rumbles around him in England—and relieved, toward the end of his life, by the stability and power of the English monarchy under Queen Victoria.
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More “Lines Written in Early Spring” Resources
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External Resources
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Wordsworth at 250 — Read about a recent celebration of Wordsworth's 250th birthday. He's still one of the world's best-known and best-loved poets in the world!
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A Short Film Based on the Poem — Watch a recent short film interpretation of the poem (and hear it read in a thick Scottish accent).
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Wordsworth's Life and Work — Read a short biography of Wordsworth, and find links to more of his poems.
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Lyrical Ballads — Check out the famous collection in which this poem first appeared.
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Wordsworth's Creative Process — Watch a short reenactment of Wordsworth writing one of his most famous poems—including some background on his collaboration with his sister Dorothy, from whose journals he took a lot of his images.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth
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