ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Spirit Ditties. Just wait and see -- you'll

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have so much more time to dance, play and sing after you're dead.

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Lines 21--24 imply that... what? And here are the potential answers...

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Once again, we're being asked to zero in on a few particular lines and try to decipher the meaning.

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We'll have to really get inside the writer's head. Hopefully, he left the back door open.

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Okay, here are the lines in question:

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Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

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And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new...

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All right... so we start out talking about tree boughs that never shed leaves... somewhere

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where it's always Spring...

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Hm... south Florida?

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Oh wait... actually, because we're studying scenery on the side of an urn, that would

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make sense... the trees painted onto it would never lose their leaves, and the season would

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never change... Does that work with the last two lines?

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"Happy melodist, unwearied"... okay, so this melodist guy never gets tired, and is

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forever playing songs on his pipe...

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Either he is really hard up for the cash and can't afford to take breaks...

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...or... yeah... he's also frozen in time on the urn.

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So it seems these lines are all about how nice and happy and beautiful it is that these

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pleasant scenes are forever preserved on the urn...

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...and we never have to see the tree lose its leaves, or the melodist... take five.

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Looking over our answer choices, C looks like a pretty clear winner here:

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"The speaker envies the stillness of time in the urn."

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Boom. We're done.

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Play us out, melodist...

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