Man

I know these notes are a little late but they can help to study for the final. The man seems to me to be a very profound poem that Vauaghan wrote to explain to himself and others how humans think and live their life. In a broad sense the poem is divided into two sections. The first consists of the first two stanza's and they talk about nature and how it nature lives its life. The second part consists of the last two stanza's and they talk about the way man kind lives their lives. It seems ironic to me that the part of man kind is easier to read and understand than the first two stanza's. Vaughan gives three examples of how nature thinks by sowing us the birds, bees, and flowers. The basic point of these examples is to show us that nature does not ask why or what about something. Nature takes time as it is and whatever it brings. Nature also stays steady following the patterns of the seasons and what their genetic code tells them to do. They are not like humans where they are continually moving about and looking for change or better things. Nature is content with the present. Humans on the other hand tend to ask questoins about everything and why stuff happens. We are continually moving and don't have a home. We may think we have a home but it's not a permanent one as in nature of a plant or tree. Ww don't know exactly where our home is. We wander about this earth hoping to find one but we will never on this earth. Our permanent home will be found in either heaven or hell. There is one line in particullar that caught my attention: And intercourse of times divide. This seems to be complicated but it actually is quite simple. The time of the birds crosses the understanding of time by us. Time is whatever we make it and we divide it up so we can better understand it into minutes, hours, seconds, days, years, etc. The birds only understand time by that which is defined by the temperature and the seasons. IT is harder for us to udnerstand their time but easy for us to understand it as it is defined by our culture. Time is different in many cultures and it is whatever you make it.