Summer Is Gone (Anglo-Saxon Period)

Many often people question their productivity as persons of an active society and relate it to age. Furthermore, they also query if their age is an impediment to achieve a goal. This questioning of the importance of age is represented in the Irish poem Summer Is Gone, which also depicts one of the main Celtic values, admiration for nature.

This poem is rich in the use of images that clearly depict the admiration for nature. It is important to point out that the speaker of this poem is very aware of it. He is someone who pays attention to details. In fact, because he observes the environment and all its cycles, he is able to explain the process of aging using images of natural elements.

Moreover, the speaker is announcing the truth about old age of a person who is unaware of this issue. For instance, when the speaker says, “My tidings for you: the stag bells/Winter snows, summer is gone,” he is narrating his own story; he is telling to other person to wake up, to look at the years he has wasted, and not to make the same mistakes. Furthermore, the speaker recognizes that he is no longer a young man, but a mature one who has not made good use of his life. Additionally, the speaker shows that physical appearance changes and deteriorates; however, he does not make reference to beauty, but to the idea that the older you are, the more difficult it is to perform in a field in order to achieve your goals. In fact, on the third stanza, the speaker acknowledges that he has wasted his life, “The wild-goose has raised his wonted cry”; hence this cry shows sorrow because the person realizes that the “golden” age of youth has gone and that there is no possibility to go back to change it.

Finally, the last stanza reinforces the ideas mentioned above. Indeed, when the speaker says that “Cold has caught the wings of birds;/Season of ice—these are my tidings,” he admits that the aging process brought a person to a time in which age will “cut” the wings of freedom because there will be a moment in which old people will become dependable, so the speaker is not happy of seeing that now he does not have the same opportunities as in early life, and that he has to accept that he is an old person that will depend on others. Therefore, the speaker expresses that there is not more time to show his productivity, thus he feels repentant of knowing that he has misuse his life.

By Pamela Regidor