In his poem Haven-Haven, Hopkins prays for a day to arrive in this world when he will be free from all the tensions in his life and also from all the emotional stresses that he is facing daily. Astonishingly, the poet is so fed up with his life that he wishes either to die or reach heaven or to create a heaven on earth.
The heaven he imagines to be created is not possible in this life because heaven exists where peace exists and he knows the fact that in this everyday busy life, peace can be seldom found. But dreams are an essential part of life and Hopkins beautifully dreams of creating a heaven on Earth.
He actually expresses the desire of each and every individual who is so busy and stressed out in his life so much that he cannot find peace. This is a cry of all the 21stcentury citizens who want an escape from the hustle of every single day. The lives of these individuals have become monotonous and only when peace is created a heaven will come into existence. Life according to the poet is a deep sea and it is impossible to maintain stability in life. At one moment an individual can master his fate and acquire all the riches and at the next moment he or she can be left with nothing.
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The best way to live life is to understand the fact that when an individual keeps a foot forward he should always remember the fact that the foot which is behind is a proof of the fact that life can take a tremendous turn at any given point of time. Life at times is filled with unavoidable circumstances of anger and hatred and so the poet wants to escape life; he wants death.
Though there is a deep meaning hidden inside the poem; the meaning that nothing remains forever but still the poem is negative. The writer time and again stresses on the fact that he wishes to die. The readers who are happy with their lives are forced to think whether or not peace prevails in their life. Hopkins is undoubtedly one of the best poets the world has witnessed, but this poem fails to define the happiness that is found in life. Yes the poet is positive when he says that he wants the storms to stop and the springs to come on time so that heaven is created on Earth but still he wishes to die because he knows that achieving such a day is next to impossible.
Whatever be the negative aspects of the poem, the poet by stressing on the importance of creating heaven on Earth, clearly points out that peace today is absent in the life of most of the individuals because they do not have the time to think about small aspects in their life. The way of life of the individuals is necessarily to be changed.