When I first reading this poem, I just have one thought in my mind, it’s really long poem for me compare to me the poem that I read before, and after I begin to read, I start to realize the poem was really hard for me to understand because first this is not my first language for me to understand, and the vocabulary in the poem using was really hard, so I have to use translator to translate some words for me to continue to read, for some part I have to read double time, even I translate the words after. For example in stanza 3 “ Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar, wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.” It was really hard for me to understand the meaning of the sentence, and the period during the line really made me confused, and the word that they chose in the line was so advanced for me. However, in the poem that I know we should not stop looking the world outside us, we can not just stay the surrounding around us, we should keep looking the world far away from us, and in the specific stand number three that I know how you make yourself happy is that the heaven should make you happier than whatever in down on earth and you should have hope for that, the happiness that you have is join the happiness that you have right now, the more thing that you discover you will help me people in the future and I think you should enjoy yourself to continue looking for new thing, in the poem, regious can help you better with this, it can encourage yourself to keep looking for things, and you should not stop that. Even this poem was really hard for me, but I still spend a lot of time on it, try to understand it, and get some excitation from this poem.
Zijie, I appreciate how hard you worked to find meaning in this poem. Pope’s language is challenging even for people whose first language is English, so good for you for sticking with it and doing your best to understand this complex poem!