Song Meaning
The speaker implores that a body be moved into the sun, recalling how its warmth once gently roused the deceased from sleep. This sun, a constant force that awoke him even in the harshness of France, is now the only hope for a stirring, despite the current snow. The lyrics paint a poignant picture of life's gentle beginnings contrasted with the stark reality of death.
The central tension lies in the futile plea to a life-giving force to animate the lifeless. The sun, previously a symbol of awakening and growth, is now invoked in a desperate, almost ironic, attempt to reverse the irreversible. The narrator questions the very purpose of the sun's energy if it cannot now overcome the "hard to stir" state of the body.
The craft here is in the personification of the sun as a "kind old" entity with knowledge, and the stark contrast between "fields unsown" and the current "snow." The repeated idea of waking – "awoke him," "wakes the seeds," "Woke, once" – emphasizes the profound stillness that has now settled. The rhetorical questions at the end, "Are limbs so dear-achieved... too hard to stir?" and "O what made fatuous sunbeams toil... at all?" underscore the tragic futility of the situation.
This writing is effective because it grounds an immense grief in the specific, tangible imagery of the sun's power and its failure. The shift from gentle remembrance to bitter, questioning despair highlights the profound loss. The final lines leave the reader with a sense of existential bewilderment, questioning the purpose of life's energy when faced with such absolute finality.
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