First Sight

Theme:

The poem talks about the circle of life, birth and death and rebirth. Optimism usually manifests in nature, especially in the cycles of nature and seasons become important, especially to give hope and faith in things.

Content:

First Sight describes lambs in the cold winter, and the hope of spring.

Analysis:

• Lambs are a religious symbol for youth, innocence and purity, born in the spring the poem is based in the late winter. They are the sign of new life, and hold hope. The 'vast unwelcome' of the cold weather is unkind, the season has no opportunity for grazing and they have to starve and try to survive, difficult for young animals. 'Sunless' suggests that the lambs see they have no hope, that life is cold and miserable. 'Outside the fold', the home they live where sheep are kept, there is a 'wretched width of cold'. Beyond the fence there is worse, that the lambs could not bear. 
• 'Waiting too' is Spring, 'Earth's immeasurable surprise. This season is the promise of hope/change, a nicer atmosphere that is more optimistic and changes the bad things into more positive good things. The lambs do not know of this to come, the world just seems dull and empty at the moment. The lambs have only seen the bleakness of winter.