" Lines Written in Early Spring" By: William Wordsworth

The word "lament" as used in line 23 of this poem stimulates a feeling of grief or despair within the reader. To lament is to have great sorrow or remorse about something, and is usually associated with death or tragedy, which is fitting to this poem. The footnote suggests that Wordsworth's poem may relate to Robert Burn's "Man Was Made to Mourn, A Dirge" (1786). Burn's poem is about poor, overworked men who waste their youth worrying, mourning and letting their passions die. These men become bitter and worn with age and cause the pain and suffering of other men through their petty greed and selfishness. This may be the condition of men which the narrator of Wordsworth's poem is lamenting. He finds himself surround by the beauty and peacefulness of nature in spring. Nature is new, fresh, and its growth seems harmonious and sweet. He contrasts natures celebration of life to mankind's pessimism and anticipation of death. A line from "Man Was Made to Mourn" is as follows: "O Death! The poor man's dearest friend, the kindest and the best! Welcome the hour my aged limbs are laid with thee at rest!" The tragedy which the narrator in "Lines Written in Early Spring" is lamenting is that while the flowers and birds are finding joy in every breath of air they are blessed to take, man spends his life in regret and sorrow, and finds himself hoping for the release from his turmoil through death.

Robert Burn's "Man Was Made to Mourn, A Dirge"