The speaker has turned his back on spring, noticing neither the flowers nor the birds, and even the cuckoo’s song reaches him ten days late. His unhappiness is not really about the season; it comes from waiting to hear from someone he loves. Without an answer from that person, his pleasure in life has gone flat and his hopes feel like hungry, whimpering things he cannot feed. If the answer came, he says, his creative spirit—his Muse—would come back to life with sudden force, like a huge wave that throws seaweed all the way up to a ship’s mast. The mood is one of suspended longing, caught between numbness and the possibility of joy.
Love and the Muse — Summary
My back is turned on Spring and all her flowers, The birds no longer charm from tree to tree; The cuckoo had his home in this green world Ten days before his voice was heard by me. Had I an answer from a dear one's lips, My love of life would soon regain its power; And suckle my sweet dreams, that tug my heart, And whimper to be nourished every hour. Give me that answer now, and then my Muse, That for my sweet life's sake must never die, Will rise like that great wave that leaps and hangs The sea-weed on a vessel's mast-top high.