A Days Time :: essays research papers

Centuries apart Robert Herrick and Robert cover wrote poems illustrating the brevity of life. &8220To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Herrick and &8220Nothing Gold Can Stay by Frost are the two poems which address the limited measure humanity, especially the time of youth, has to spend in this life. Both authors use nature to signize the shortness of life and the time spent in youth.A symbol of nature utilized in both poems is a flower. In full bloom, a flower is in its or so beautiful and prolific state. In youth, man is in the same state of a flower in bloom, resplendent and bountiful, tho the time of beauty for a flower and youth is short. Herrrick states in lines 3-4 &8220And this same flower that smiles today,/ Tommorrow will be dying,(728) which is a symbol of the shortness of youth. Frost in lines 3-4 &8220Her early leaf&8217s a flower/ But only so an hour,(989) also symbolizes the fleeting time of youth. In the beginning, a flower and youth are filled with vitalit y, but in a short amount of time the flower will wilt and die, and the youth will be an adult on a transit to death.The mho symbol used by Herrick and Frost is the day youth is dawn, adulthood is midday, and death is the setting of the sun. From the day man is born, he is dying. In the second stanza, Herrick illustrates the shortness of a day the higher in the sky the sun gets, the closer to setting it gets. In line 7, &8220So dawn goes down to day, (990) Frost also addresses the limited time man has in life. Frost&8217s choice of the word down to describe the action of the sun helps to make the symbol of the day more clear, by illustrating the shortness of a day. Usually one thinks of the sun rising in the day not going down until subsequently noon.