When
I have borne in memory what has tamed
by
William Wordsworth
(Poem, Summary, Paraphrase & Analysis)
When
I have borne in memory what has tamed
When
I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great
Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When
men change Swords for Ledgers, and desert
The
Student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed
I
had, my Country! am I to be blamed?
But,
when I think of Thee, and what Thou art,
Verily,
in the bottom of my heart,
Of
those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
But
dearly must we prize thee; we who find
In
thee a bulwark of the cause of men;
And
I by my affection was beguiled.
What
wonder, if a Poet, now and then,
Among
the many movements of his mind,
Felt
for thee as a Lover or a Child.
Summary
William
Wordsworth’s sonnet When I Have Borne in Memory What Has Tamed reflects the
poet’s deep concern with the decline of nations when material pursuits replace
noble ideals. The poem begins with the speaker recalling how the downfall of
great nations has often been brought about by a loss of higher values. He
remembers how people once strong and courageous in arms abandoned the path of
virtue when they exchanged “swords for ledgers” and gave up intellectual
devotion for the pursuit of wealth. This memory leads him to a moment of
anxiety for his own country, England. He wonders if he is wrong to feel uneasy,
fearing that his nation too may fall into the same decline by preferring
material gain over moral strength.
Yet,
as the sonnet progresses, the speaker reassures himself. He recalls the
enduring character of his country and what it still represents. He acknowledges
that his earlier fears were almost unworthy—“unfilial”—because they did not do
justice to England’s true spirit. In the depths of his heart, he admits shame
for having doubted her strength. Instead, he declares that England must be
cherished and valued, especially by those who see her as a stronghold for the
cause of humanity at large. The poet recognizes that his affection may have
caused him to fear too much, but he views such emotion as natural.
The
closing lines describe the intensity of his attachment. Wordsworth suggests
that it is no surprise if a poet, amidst the many movements of his mind,
sometimes feels for his country with the same passion and tenderness as a lover
or a child would feel. His devotion is not only patriotic but deeply personal,
blending love, dependence, and reverence.
In
summary, the poem unfolds as a movement from fear to reassurance, from anxiety
to renewed trust. Wordsworth portrays the danger of nations being weakened by
materialism, but in the same breath, he reaffirms England’s role as a moral and
protective force. His own emotions swing between doubt and confidence, and
ultimately rest in a heartfelt attachment that goes beyond reason—an affection
as natural and powerful as familial love.
Line-by-line
Paraphrase
When
I have borne in memory what has tamed
->
When I have remembered what has weakened and subdued great nations,
Great
Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
->
How their noble and uplifting ideas fade away,
When
men change Swords for Ledgers, and desert
->
When men put aside their weapons for business accounts,
The
Student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed
->
And abandon the scholar’s quiet study for the pursuit of wealth, I have felt
vague fears,
I
had, my Country! am I to be blamed?
->
I feared for you, my country—should I be blamed for this?
But,
when I think of Thee, and what Thou art,
->
But when I reflect on you, England, and what you truly are,
Verily,
in the bottom of my heart,
->
Truly, deep in my heart,
Of
those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
->
I feel ashamed of those almost disloyal, unworthy fears.
But
dearly must we prize thee; we who find
->
But we must value you greatly; for we recognize in you,
In
thee a bulwark of the cause of men;
->
A strong defense of humanity’s noble cause.
And
I by my affection was beguiled.
->
And my deep love for you led me to worry too much.
What
wonder, if a Poet, now and then,
->
So is it any wonder if a poet, from time to time,
Among
the many movements of his mind,
->
Amid the many feelings and thoughts that stir in his heart,
Felt
for thee as a Lover or a Child.
->
Feels for his country the same affection that a lover or a child would feel.
Analysis
in Detail
William
Wordsworth’s sonnet “When I have borne in memory what has tamed” dramatizes an
inner argument about national character, modernity, and the ethical center of
patriotism. The poem opens with a backward glance—“borne in memory”—that
immediately frames the speaker’s concern in historical terms. He has seen how
“Great Nations” can be “tamed”: not annihilated by catastrophe, but
domesticated, softened, and morally diminished. The verb “tamed” is crucial. It
suggests a loss of vitality and purpose, a quieting of energies that once were
fierce and principled. From the start, then, the sonnet is less a war-cry than
a meditation on how societies drift into comfort and compromise, and how that
drift manifests as spiritual recession.
Wordsworth
pins the mechanism of decline on a shift in social priorities: “when men change
Swords for Ledgers” and abandon “The Student’s bower for gold.” The paired
images oppose martial courage and intellectual cultivation to commercial
bookkeeping and the fever for monetary gain. Neither “sword” nor “bower” is
presented as a permanent or perfect ideal; instead, the pairing symbolizes
public bravery and private discipline, the very virtues that, for Wordsworth,
keep a nation upright. The ledger and the lure of gold signify the ascendancy
of counting over conscience, of transactional reasoning over the pursuit of
truth. The effect is not merely economic; it is moral and imaginative. As
“ennobling thoughts depart,” people become harder to stir with high purposes,
and a civilization that once elevated the mind now trains it to calculate.
Having
diagnosed this cultural malaise, the poet pivots to his own country with an
anxious question: “am I to be blamed?” The rhetorical question reveals a
conscientious patriot, fearful not only for England but also of the impropriety
of doubting her. Wordsworth’s patriotism is filial; England is a figure to whom
obligations are owed. When he later names his earlier anxiety “unfilial fears,”
he acknowledges a standard of loyalty that can be breached not by action alone
but by inward suspicion. This inwardness matters. The sonnet’s battle is fought
inside the heart, where competing loyalties—truthfulness about national
shortcomings and love of country—strain against each other.
The
sestet, as in many Petrarchan sonnets, supplies the turn from agitation to
steadier ground. Remembering “what Thou art,” the poet rebukes his own fears
and recovers esteem for England. She is “a bulwark of the cause of men”—a
striking universalizing phrase that elevates the nation beyond self-interest.
England is valuable not because she is merely “ours,” but because she upholds a
human cause, a set of principles that fortify human dignity. That claim
simultaneously reins in the poet’s earlier critique and justifies his renewed
confidence: England’s worth lies in her moral office. It also implies that a
nation can be judged by how faithfully it serves ends larger than its
prosperity—liberty, justice, humane order.
Crucially,
the poet also confesses that “by my affection [I] was beguiled.” This is not a
retreat from reason but a lucid admission of bias. Love of country can distort
vision, heightening fear or softening judgment. Wordsworth is unusually candid
about the way feeling colors his assessment. In naming the beguilement, he does
something honest and corrective: he permits love but refuses to let love
masquerade as pure objectivity. The sonnet’s authority flows from this candor;
its faith in England is hard-won, not naive.
The
closing comparison—feeling for the country “as a Lover or a Child”—completes
the poem’s emotional architecture. The two roles are not redundant. A lover’s
attachment is passionate, elective, idealizing; a child’s attachment is
dependent, inherited, reverent. To feel both ways at once is to bind oneself by
choice and by birthright, by desire and by duty. The doubleness also resolves
an earlier tension: if commercial modernity threatens to erode communal bonds,
the poem proposes a counter-bond in rightly ordered affection, one that is warm
enough to inspire sacrifice and humble enough to accept correction.
Formally,
the sonnet’s measured iambic pentameter and its variant Petrarchan rhyme
underscore the argument’s poise. The octave advances a historical observation
and a personal scruple; the sestet recalibrates feeling under the pressure of
considered remembrance. Rhetorical devices carry the load: antithesis (“Swords”
vs. “Ledgers,” “Student’s bower” vs. “gold”), the self-interrupting question
(“am I to be blamed?”), and controlled anaphora in the repeated appeals to
“thee/Thou.” Diction leans deliberately archaic (“Thee,” “Thou,” “bower,”
“bulwark”), not as ornament but to align the poem with an older ethical
register—serious, solemn, and civic. Even the capitalized abstractions (“Great
Nations”) lend scale and gravity, as though the poet were inscribing a public
inscription rather than writing a private lyric.
Thematically,
the sonnet belongs to Wordsworth’s early-nineteenth-century reassessment of
European upheaval and English identity. Its critique of materialism is not a
call to perpetual warfare or cloistered scholarship; rather, it is a plea that
the energies symbolized by “sword” and “study”—courage and culture—remain
central in a nation that might otherwise be lulled by prosperity. The poem’s
patriotism therefore is ethical before it is celebratory. To “prize” England
“dearly” is to demand that she continue to stand as a “bulwark” for the wider
human cause; love and responsibility are inseparable.
What
makes the sonnet enduring is not only its timely critique but its psychological
truth. Nations change when imaginations change, and the poem locates that
change where it begins—in what people “bear in memory.” Memory, for Wordsworth,
is the soil of moral resolve. If a populace remembers what truly dignifies
them, they resist being “tamed” by comfort; if they forget, ledgers will
quietly replace loyalties, and gold will crowd out grace. The sonnet’s final
justification—“What wonder, if a Poet, now and then…”—is not an apology for
sentimentality; it is a defense of the poet’s vocation to keep such memories
vivid. In that sense, the poem practices what it preaches: it preserves, in
heightened language, a set of values it wants its readers—and its nation—to
remember.
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