What does this poem mean to you?

Question

Often rebuked, yet always back returning

OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

Today, I will not seek the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory, and more grief, than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

Answer 1

A forum for your work.

Answer 2

To me this poem seems to tell me that it's not worth it to pursue the "better" things of this world, i.e. fame and fortune. Rather than pursue things that people in the past have because they wanted to get recognized, the author would rather choose their own path and live the life that they want to live. Everyone in the world has to make this choice and it's harder for some than others to chose between a life of their own and a life that's not.

I hope this answers your question and that I didn't inadvertently do your homework.

Answer 3

Sounds like you need to quit walking the same old path and blaze a new trail. You might just be delighted in what you find.

Answer 4

"...always back turning to those feelings that were born with me..." I think that the author is expressing a longing to get away from the realities of life and wants to be free to feel without the inhibitions of scociety and its restrictions.
I think that he also wants to just sit down and think or perhaps sleep and dream as opposed to really living. He is tired of life and wants to think of "how it could be" as opposed to "how it really is". He wants to be at peace in a serene world of his own creating, and is creating it through this poem.

Answer 5

That you want someone to do your homework for you?