As I stated before, Smith is trying to communicate that a life driven by the never-ending quest for reason and knowledge is not the happiest life. Happiness for Smith, "An early worshipper at Nature's shrine," is found in the breathing in of one's natural surroundings and in the overwhelming calm of simplicity that is only found, not with questions, but with pure acceptance (l. 346). The peasants she repeatedly refers to are living this life of acceptance, working with the land, giving back as much as they take, and to Smith, this existence, "Rude, and but just remov'd from savage life," is closest to knowing happiness (l. 207).
Smith knocks those who worship philosophy as some path to salvation with some rather scathing lines: "These are the toys of Nature; and her sport / Of little estimate in Reason's eye: / And they who reason, with abhorrence see / Man, for such gaudes and baubles, violate / The sacred freedom of his fellow man" (ll. 55-59). Yet she does not leave her and her fellow poets fully blame free, she even expresses that art's attempts to recreate the overpowering force of nature's fortuitous beauty are futile: "Ah! hills so early loved!... I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold / those wildly spreading views, mocking alike / The Poet and the Painter's utmost art" (ll. 368-371). She too only knew happiness as a girl who traipsed along downy turf and played in the gay colors of nature; no matter how she tries poetically (and does she try ie. every descriptive line of this poem) to illustrate the feeling that comes with being apart of nature, she will never fully be able to.
I was then led to think about Wordsworth's claim that real life is inevitably more beautiful, closer to actualized beauty, than poetry (although he later turns this around). Reworded with Smith's twist, living life in full acceptance of the ways of nature is more real, therefore more valuable than writing, philosophizing, or questioning life. That is hard to accept, considering that we as humans possess the sometimes irrational urge to question everything. I think Smith may have made a valid point that "More happy is the hind, / Who, with his own hands rears on some black moor," and "Yet they are happy, who have never ask'd / What good or evil means," but in making these comments, intentionally ignored an integral aspect of humanity in these people (ll. 193-194, 259-260). As we just discussed in class, these peasants also are subject to the same natural human inclination to question, so they too will never fully be able to resolve themselves to nature. Our ability to pontificate philosophic macro-views (thanks Janelle for the awesome wordage) will never completely surrender to, nor comprehend the minutiae and indiscriminate core of nature.
The Simple Life - doesn't it look grand?
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