Soul-Deadening Morality
The opening lines of the poem form an instructive piece of advice to the reader to avoid being shaped by man-made morality. The first line is an assertion in the abstract that there are no expectations of “good” place upon entry into the world. The second narrows down this abstraction specifically to the idea of religious repentance for having committing sin. This opening sets the stage for the poem’s analysis and commentary on the lack of inherent moral instruction by nature. The introduction of man-made morality into a world supposedly created by God is thus suggested to be ironically unnatural and deadening to the soul.
Despair
The speaker directly addresses readers about this deadening of the soul by asking them to tell her of their despair and she will, in turn, tell them of hers. Whether or not this discourse of despair ever actually takes place or not, the world moves on. The wild geese continue to migrate between the north and south as the climate dictates and suffer no anguish over this enforced displacement. Human beings are the lone occupants on the planet who allow despair to dictate their natural inclinations. In the end, all that anxiety goes unnoticed by the rest of the world and the rest of world remains unchanged. The exploration of this theme is not suggesting that nobody should have feelings of despondency, but that it is important to put such feelings into perspective. Loneliness is a matter of self-perception in world surrounded by the people, places, and things.
The Natural State
This poem specifically and the author’s body of work in general celebrate Rousseau’s theories about the supremacy of the natural state. Rousseau’s philosophical reasoning is that creatures in their natural environment enjoy true freedom and liberty that human beings cannot replicate due to the machinery of society. The speaker is not advocating hedonism in which the natural state is presented as a license for any behavior deemed natural, but is rather suggesting that the non-human world reacts instinctively by following their nature as a species. The poem ends with the world metaphorically reminding humans that they, too, are simply one member of the larger family of creatures on the planet that all manage to survive just fine without impositions placed upon them which impede their instinctive urge to behave as nature intended.
