The Speaker

The speaker is the narrator and primary character of the poem. The speaker does not provide any physical description of themselves, and most of what we learn about their personality or views comes from the statements they make throughout the text. One of their most defining qualities is their penchant for nostalgia and retrospection. They spend much of the poem looking back on their youth and the way in which they experienced the world as a child, implying that at the start of the poem they are dissatisfied and unfulfilled with adulthood. This dissatisfaction leads to an identity crisis and a great deal of introspection.

It is also clear that the speaker is a person who appreciates and values nature for its inherent beauty. The basis of their existential crisis rests upon the fact that they do not experience the same sense of wonder in nature that...