Perhaps the speaker feels similar, he may have wanted to travel when young and become more comfortable in staying put in one place when he was older. They talk about going away, leaving the place where they’re rooted, when they’re young, but as they grow older they become more comfortable in their ‘dwelling place’ and are happy to stay there. Nevertheless, this seems to refresh him and he is aware that the journey may give him less wisdom, ‘less to say’, but at least he will experience a refreshing change in his environment.Įxtended metaphor - The trees seem to be an extended metaphor for human nature, or for nature as a whole - and perhaps in their sound the speaker hears his own thoughts. He definitively decides towards the end of the poem to ‘set forth for somewhere’ - although the abstract noun ‘somewhere’ somewhat undermines his confident decision, as he doesn’t have a clear plan of action in terms of where he will be travelling. However, he is also resistant at other points in the poem - he uses the verbs ‘bear’ and ‘suffer’ to show that he is putting up with their opinion, and that it is difficult or damaging to him to listen to their advice, no matter how wise they may be. At times he seems to listen to and accept the wisdom of the trees, imitating their movement and feeling at peace in his home. The speaker has a curious nature, he seems torn between listening to the advice of the trees - he interprets the noise they make as they are buffeted by the wind as saying that he should remain fixed and grow strong in his home, his ‘dwelling place’. One day when they are ‘in voice’ and tossing around, as if to scare the white clouds above them to move on, he will have less to say than them, but at least he will be gone. He says he will not stay put like them: ‘I shall set forth somewhere’, he won’t stay confined in the comforts of his own home but instead make ‘the reckless choice’ and travel or move to a different place. He sways like a tree, his head resting on his shoulder, imitating their posture and movement. The speaker then switches back to himself, he says that sometimes when he watches the trees sway from the window or door of his house, his ‘feet tug at the floor’ - he also becomes rooted to the spot. As they grow older, they also grow wiser, and they keep talking - they also wish to stay in the same place once they mature. The trees talk of going (leaving), but they never get away themselves.
Why are humans happy to put up with the constant noise of trees, more than other noises, so close to their homes? We put up with them all day until we have no sense of what joyful task we were doing, and instead we just sit and listen to the noise of the trees.
The speaker tells us that the trees make him think.
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