I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

The first two lines of the poem put forward the speaker’s opening claim that no poem will ever be as lovely as a tree. At this point in the poem, it isn’t yet clear what’s at stake in this claim. Nor is it clear why the speaker would be interested in comparing a poem to a tree in the first place. What is clear, however, is that speaker is making a comparison between a human-made artifact (i.e., a poem) and a naturally occurring organic being (i.e., a tree). In this way, then, the poem opens with an implicit distinction between human culture and nonhuman nature. Yet even as the speaker introduces this distinction, they also clearly indicate their preference for the tree, and thus for the natural world. There’s a certain irony here, as the speaker opens the poem by implying that poems are, by their nature, inferior to the wonders of nature itself. But this irony is softened by the speaker’s reverential tone. In particular, note how the subtle use of short A sounds gives these lines a quiet elegance, one that reflects the speaker’s reverence for the natural world.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Taken together, the poem’s four middle stanzas (lines 3–10) constitute a single sentence. Over the course of this one sentence, the speaker offers a series of observations that clarify the various qualities of trees that make them so lovely. The speaker seems to offer these examples as evidence in support of their opening claim that no poem is as lovely as a tree. What’s immediately evident in these middle stanzas is the way the speaker personifies trees. Initially, the speaker likens a tree to a human infant who hungrily nurses at the “sweet flowing breast” of the earth. In the next three couplets, however, the infant tree seems to have metaphorically grown up into a woman. Indeed, the speaker now describes trees in decisively gendered terms, likening them to a pious woman who “lifts her leafy arms to pray,” dresses “in Summer wear,” and collects snow on her “bosom” in winter. The feminization of the tree reflects a traditional tendency to gender nature as feminine. This gendering further relates to the speaker’s more general point about the natural world as God’s Creation. If God represents a masculine power of creation, then his creation is implicitly feminine.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Lines 11–12 closes the poem in terms that at once recall and revise the opening couplet. The speaker began the poem by asserting how unlikely it is that any poem could be as lovely as a tree. They then followed this claim with four couplets that explored various characteristics that make trees so exceptionally lovely. Now, in the final couplet, the speaker returns to their earlier claim by again asserting the inferiority of poems to trees. Here, however, there’s a significant difference in how the speaker frames this claim. Instead of making a direct comparison between poems and trees, the speaker reframes the comparison in terms not of the creations but of their creators. As the speaker puts it, the creators of poems are “fools like me.” By contrast, there is only one being capable of creating a tree, and that is the Creator himself: God. In this way, the terms of comparison have shifted from poem versus tree to poet versus God. When put in these terms, the absurdity of the comparison fully reveals itself, and the conclusion becomes obvious. Trees are superior to poems for no other reason than that God made them.

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