Symbol Analysis
The entire second stanza of "Loveliest of Trees" reads like a math textbook, with the speaker calculating how long he will live, how many years he has left, and trying to decide if that's enough time to get everything in that he wants before he dies. While the speaker's little calculations can get a little confusing, they suggest that the speaker is just now realizing that he will eventually die—life is short. All these numbers symbolize the more analytic side of the speaker's brain, and they balance out his more poetic obsession with springtime, trees, and natural beauty.
- Line 5: The speaker looks into the future and estimates that he will live to be about 70 ("threescore years and ten"). This is his first analytical calculation of the poem. After the gushing of the first stanza, this line reads like a little reality check.
- Line 6: The speaker's reality check continues. He realizes that he's 20 years old, and the past 20 years are dead and gone, never to return.
- Lines 7-8: Once more, the speaker reminds himself that he will live about 70 years, and since he's already been alive for 20, he's only got about 50 years left. (That checks out with our math.) The calculations he performs here suggest that he wants to make sure he knows exactly how much time he has left.
- Lines 9-10: We're not sure if the speaker is being sarcastic here, but it is just a tad absurd to say that 50 years is "little room" to look at things in bloom. He's probably exaggerating a little bit in order to motivate himself. If he thinks 50 years is not enough to see everything he wants to see, then maybe he will be a little proactive when it comes to getting out there and living life to the fullest.