Stephen Spender's poem "The Truly Great" celebrates people whose lives might not make it into the history books as great people. They are not statesmen or generals or titans of industry. Instead, they are people who lived in harmony with their own souls and with nature, and who drank in and enjoyed life's simple pleasures.
The line that the great are those "who hoarded from the Spring branches / The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms" appears at the end of the first stanza. In this stanza, Spender lauds those ordinary people who sang or told or lived a beautiful story of light and sun in tune with the "Spirit" of the world. They enjoyed and sang of the bright and ecstatic side of life. The "Spring branches" they hoarded is a metaphor or comparison to the pleasures and desires of youth. These great people enjoyed physical, sensual pleasures. They were not puritanical and did not rigidly or grimly deny themselves the good things—they harvested the "blossoms" of life.
Spender's poem reframes greatness as living close to nature and the spiritual life.
Your quotation comes from English poet Stephen Spender's 1928 poem "The Truly Great."
The speaker begins the first stanza speaking of "the truly great," who were the ones who passed down knowledge of the spirit. They, the truly great, are the ones "who hoarded from the Spring branches/The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms." The speaker observes that the truly great were completely in tune with nature.
The speaker goes on to pay further homage to the truly great, suggesting that their lives were short but burned vividly and that they are worthy of remembrance. Nature, in fact, remembers them and celebrates them with winds, waving grasses, and clouds that move through the sky. What makes the truly great worthy of remembrance is that they fully engaged in life and metaphorically had fire in their hearts. They exemplified the human spirit and left a legacy for succeeding generations.
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