Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,_x000D_ _x000D_ The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,_x000D_ _x000D_ Drops in a silent autumn night._x000D_ _x000D_ All its allotted length of days_x000D_ _x000D_ The flower ripens in its place,_x000D_ _x000D_ Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,_x000D_ _x000D_ Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the natural process of growth, ripening, and the inevitability of change and aging.
Tennyson's quote illustrates the cyclical nature of life, highlighting how everything has its time to grow, flourish, and eventually fade away. The rich imagery of an apple ripening in the warmth of summer and falling in autumn symbolizes natural progression and acceptance of life's inevitable cycles, emphasizing the beauty in each phase without the burden of struggle.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of embracing change.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
I pledge allegiance to the soil _x000D_ of Turtle Island, _x000D_ and to the beings who thereon dwell _x000D_ one ecosystem _x000D_ in diversity _x000D_ under the sun _x000D_ With joyful interpenetratio n for all.
Jordan has a strange, haunting beauty and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the world of tomorrow. I love every inch of it.
I drive a hybrid, and we've changed our light bulbs and windows and installed solar panels and geothermal ground source heat pumps and most everything else.
Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto-trunk and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage.
[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.
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