Lines Written in Early Spring Questions and Answers — William Wordsworth

Lines Written in Early Spring is about a speaker who sits in a grove in early spring, surrounded by joyful natural sights — singing birds, budding trees, flowering plants. He is moved and saddened. He believes nature was made by God to be pleasant and joyful, and that all natural things participate in this joy. But he is sad because this natural joy contrasts with 'what man has made of man' — human history, conflict, and the suffering people inflict on each other. The poem is both a celebration of nature and a lament for humanity.

'What man has made of man' is the poem's most powerful phrase — and one of the most quoted lines in Wordsworth. It refers to the suffering, injustice, and cruelty that human beings have inflicted on each other throughout history: wars, oppression, slavery, poverty, violence. While nature lives in harmony — birds sing, flowers open, trees grow — human history is a record of what humanity has done to destroy its own kind. The contrast between nature's joy and human history's cruelty is the source of the speaker's grief.

The main themes are: the contrast between nature and humanity — nature is joyful and harmonious; humanity is destructive and cruel; nature as God's creation — the speaker believes that natural pleasure is part of God's plan for creation; the Romantic vision of nature — Wordsworth sees nature as innocent, wise, and morally superior to human civilisation; and social criticism — 'what man has made of man' is an implicit indictment of war, oppression, and injustice.

Wordsworth describes nature as joyful, alive, and apparently happy. The birds hop and play and seem to enjoy their movements. The budding twigs spread out their fan to catch the breezy air. The flowers enjoy the air they breathe. The periwinkle trails its wreaths. Everything in nature seems to participate in a natural pleasure — not just alive but joyful. This is Wordsworth's characteristic vision: nature is not indifferent but active, animated, and glad. Its joy is innocent and uncorrupted.

Wordsworth uses: personification — birds 'hop and play,' flowers 'enjoy the air they breathe,' as if they have feelings; contrast — the joy of nature contrasted with the suffering humanity has created; paradox — the speaker is both happy (in nature) and sad (about humanity) simultaneously; the refrain — 'Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?' appears at intervals, emphasising the grief; and simple, direct language that makes the poem accessible while carrying deep meaning.

Early spring is a time of renewal, new life, and hope — everything is budding and awakening. It is the season most associated with natural joy and optimism. Wordsworth chooses this setting deliberately: the contrast between the optimistic, renewing season and his melancholy about human affairs is at its sharpest in spring. The very season that represents hope serves to highlight, by contrast, the failure of human beings to live up to nature's example.

The speaker believes that God created nature to be pleasant and that every natural creature participates in the joy of creation. He says: 'It seem'd that Nature's holy plan / Had nothing but joy.' This is Wordsworth's version of natural theology: the natural world reflects God's goodness and intention. Every bird that hops, every flower that opens, every tree that buds — these are expressions of divine joy. Humanity was presumably made with the same intention, but has perverted that plan through its own cruelty.

The poem perfectly embodies several key Romantic values: the celebration of nature as morally superior to civilisation; the use of solitary communion with nature as a vehicle for moral reflection; the contrast between natural innocence and human corruption; and the speaker's personal emotional response to nature as a way of accessing larger truths. The poem belongs to Lyrical Ballads (1798), the manifesto of English Romanticism, and shares its characteristic move from specific natural observation to universal moral insight.

The speaker's sadness is specifically moral and social. He is not depressed about his personal circumstances — he is grieving for humanity. The beauty of nature around him makes his sadness greater, not less, because it sharpens the contrast: nature lives as God intended — joyfully, harmoniously — but humanity does not. The birds do not make war on each other; the flowers do not oppress each other; the trees do not enslave each other. Humanity alone has the capacity to harm its own kind — and has done so throughout history. This is what grieves the speaker.

The poem teaches that nature is our best moral teacher: it shows us what a life in harmony with God's plan looks like. The contrast between nature's joyful innocence and humanity's violent history is both a diagnosis and an implicit prescription: if we could learn from nature, if we could live as the birds and flowers do — simply, joyfully, without cruelty — we would recover the goodness we have lost. The poem is a lament but also a vision: 'what man has made of man' does not have to be the final word.