The first four lines of Byron's verse are beautiful because they are so evocative the last five lines are beautiful because they are so full of wisdom and insight. It is beautifully evocative and romantic, but it is also somewhat untruthful for it is impossible for us to be rolled sound in Earth's diurnal course in the same way that, for instance, a wild animal is. Wordsworth, in a short poem which begins "A slumber did my spirit seal" wrote about his soul being "rolled sound in Earth's diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees". After the death of his former lover Robert (Clint Eastwood), Francesca (Meryl Streep) receives a box wih his personal items. There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar I love not Man the less, but Nature more. Yet this striving to conceal has presumably led to the disjunct with Nature, which means we can only hold "interviews" with our true selves, that we must attempt to "steal" wisdom and insight which ought to be ours by right, and that we cannot express what we truly are. He states that modern humans have tried (with only partial success) to "conceal" their essence and origins. But he is also unsure of the how and the wherefore of his Nature being, using the words "may be". Byron is asserting the belief that our origins and essence lie in Nature, that we are from Nature, that perhaps we ought to be one with Nature, and that therefore this mingling with the Universe is a pleasurable, wonderful thing. What Byron is saying is that although there is a pleasure in the pathless woods etc., although we are drawn to Nature because Nature is "all I may be, or have been before", there is also a clear disjunct between modern humans and Nature. LORD BYRON NATURE QUOTE: There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep. Yet we wouldn't be surprised if John Donne came up with such a remark, so it certainly isn't because it is "too modern". I think people are only complaining that it doesn't sound right or sounds too modern because it de-romanticises the opening lines. I think use of the word interview is brilliant and demonstrates the greatness of the poet.
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