The Peacock — Summary

The speaker asks what ordinary riches could mean to someone who has made a great peacock simply from the pride of his eye. The phrase points to creative intensity and self-delight, not vanity. A bare, wind-beaten, stone-grey hillside—Three Rock—would be enough to feed this whim. Even after death, among wet rocks and heather, the maker’s ghost will stay gay, adding feather to feather. The mood is both harsh and strangely joyful. The landscape is desolate, but the act of making turns it into something bright and sustaining. There is a quiet defiance here: art needs no wealth, and the pleasure of shaping beauty continues past the grave. The poem feels like a small, confident celebration of the creative eye’s power to make its own riches.