The Wild Honeysuckle Poem Analysis

The poem “The Wild Honeysuckle” written by Philip Freneau, through four short stanzas, breaks down the life and death of a flower as the narrator of the poem observes it. Through the use of his vivid imagery, and metaphors, Freneau uses the cycle of life of a flower as representation for a human’s life cycle, and each organisms’ impending death. He uses the descriptions of nature to portray a relationship between a flower and its environment, symbolizing a child’s relationship with its caregiver and life. Each stanza within the twenty-four lines represents a stage within human life: when a baby is in the womb, their childhood, adulthood, and then their ultimate death. In each cycle, the flower, and the symbolic child, grows from a newborn protected …show more content…
Through this comparison, Freneau is able to make commentary on how the human live views death. Although the idea of dying is often seen as a grim, and somber thought, Freneau comments in his work that instead of fearing death, humans should embrace it as an unavoidable passage, and use it as a reason to continue living and appreciating life. “The Wild Honeysuckle” opens up with the narrator observing a flower, presumably a honeysuckle, hidden away from the public, and even shielded by the trees and branches around it. The flower is described as “Hid in this silent, dull retreat / Untouched thy honied blossoms blow / Unseen thy little branches greet” (2-4). This description portrays an image of a delicate flower, shielded away from sight, even protected by its surrounding branches and blossoms. The …show more content…
He comments that the life of the flower was short as an hour, and how fragile the flower was. The fragileness of a life is similar to how short and unpredictable the life of a human can be. This stanza represents the final stage in a human’s life: her impending death. Just as the life of the flower seemed short and fragile, in the grand scheme of the world, the life of one human seems short and frail. The narrator acknowledges that the flower has seemed to die the same way it was born: “If nothing once, you nothing lose / For when you die you are the same” (21-22). Here, he comments that the flower has died alone just as it was born alone. Yet, he does not make this observation with a dark, or melancholy tone; instead, he is acknowledging that although the flower has passed and its beauty is no longer present in the world, the world will continue to move and evolve without it. This is not meant to be a depressing thought, but rather one the flower, like all living beings must do, has come to peace with. Just as the world will continue revolve without the flower, the world will do the same with the woman and all other humans. Yet, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it allows for the world to continue on for others to survive. By making this observation, the narrator also realizes that despite the life the flower