The trees did wave their plumy crests,
The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
Was only sullen there!
After the introductory stanzas about summer, this one provides the poem with an emotional turning point. While the first two lines offer images of summer's peak—birdsong and trees swaying in the breeze—the latter two show the speaker's lack of connection with this moment. Describing herself as the only "sullen" member of the "wedding" between May and June, she introduces the poem's central conflict. This stanza is structurally important to the poem as it marks the shift away from more general scene-setting into a deeper display of the speaker's interiority.
And why should we be glad at all?
The leaf is hardly green,
Before a token of its fall
Is on the surface seen!
This stanza occurs midway through the poem, as the speaker begins to reflect on why she is unhappy during such a beautiful event. She states that she is unable to be "glad" because the leaves on the trees are "hardly green before a token of its fall" is visible. What she means is that even as summer has just begun, she can already see the signs of its conclusion and therefore cannot experience the present moment. This stanza provides a natural image that encapsulates the speaker's point of view on the passage of the season.
“And, could we lift the veil, and give
One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
BECAUSE they live to die.”
This stanza is from the ending section of the poem, during the celestial figure's monologue to the speaker. It states that she should stop fixating on the conclusion of summer and appreciate the fleeting beauty before her. This idea is highlighted by the last two lines, as they suggest that these moments are worth taking in precisely because of the fact that they do not last forever. Brontë places these lines in the voice of a divine being because it offers an outside critique of the speaker's view of temporality.
