A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal Notes Poem 8 English Class 9

Notes For All Chapters English Beehive Class 9

About the Poet
William Wordsworth (April 7,1770—April 23,1850) was bom in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. Wordsworth attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love for poetry was firmly established and, it is believed that he made his attempts at verse. His mother died when he was eight. While he was at Hawkshead, his father died leaving him and his four siblings orphans. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the French Revolution. This experience as well as a subsequent period living in France, brought about Wordsworth’s interest and sympathy for the life, troubles, and speech of the ‘common man’. These issues proved to be of the utmost importance to Wordsworth’s work. Wordsworth’s earliest poetry was published in 1793 in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. He published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1798. His most famous work The Prelude is considered to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism.

Central Idea of the Poem
In the poem ‘A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal’ the 1A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal the poet tells us that one whom we love very much when leaves us, our life comes to a standstill for some period of time. But it is undeniably true that anything can happen with anybody. In the poem, the poet’s beloved was a young and beautiful woman. Once she was full of life and vigour. But now she is trapped beneath the surface of the earth and revolves along with it. Thus, the poet gives an eternal message of life.

Theme of the Poem
The poem ‘A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal’ is about the death of a loved one and poet’s feeling about his beloved when he thinks about her death. The poet describes his imagination about his beloved after death. This poem is a kind of elegy. In this poem, the poet seems to be immortalizing her death by saying that she had no human fears. Now earthly years were no longer a matter of concern for her because they cannot make her older now.

In the second stanza he is describing her dead body. She is not able to perform any of the physical movement or activity now. In the last two lines the poet describes that she is now under the surface of the earth revolving along with it on its path. He tells us that like other stones, rocks and trees she also revolves with the earth now.