Weather and Seasons (Symbols)
Throughout the poem, the speaker names the seasons, as well as weather occurrences such as snow, sun, and rain, to indicate the passing of time. Temporally motivated human activities, such as the reaping of crops and the ringing of bells, also appear. The seasons, like the townspeople, exist in a never-ending cycle. The seasons, however, do not situate any of the characters in time; instead, they blur around the poem. The other townspeople are defined by time, but anyone and noone seem to exist beyond it.
Bells (Symbol)
The poem outlines anyone's whole life, and all of the stages of life seem important to the poem; we see children, adults, and elderly people. Bells are mentioned periodically in this poem and seem to represent the steady passing of time; the line in which the bells appear, "with up so floating many bells down," occurs twice. The movement of the bells is hinted at with the inclusion of the words "up" and "down." The repetition and the movement seem to symbolize the way years pass with nothing changing, with many people choosing to be homogenous.
The bells are also used in reference to the women and men of the town, described as "dong and ding." Perhaps this symbolizes how closely their lives are tied into the movement of time, how they are forced to obey the cycles of their lives. anyone and noone might not conform in some ways, but they too lay their lives down at the feet of time, dying into the earth and leaving only the next group of men and women doing their sowing and reaping.
Cultivation (Allegory)
This poem is something of a pastoral allegory. Farming terminology, such as "reap" and "sow," is used to represent the passing of time; these words also bring to mind the saying, "You reap what you sow," offering an explanation for why each generation conforms to the mold the one before it left behind.
