This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison Lesson Plan

In the first stanza, the speaker toys with both time and perspective. In which ways does this occur and to what effect?

The speaker starts the poem by establishing the conflict of the text: that he has been left behind in the garden while his guests all went on a long nature walk. The speaker is bitter about this predicament and imagines how greatly he would have held this experience in his heart, well into old age, if he had been able to go. Time moves between the present and the future before abruptly changing perspective. The speaker begins to envision what his friends are seeing on their walk. It was he who recommended the dell, so he is accurately able to...