Closing the gate: The Story of the Shepherd

Word "Lamb" highlights Wordsworth's poem best. The Last of the flock is a poem about sacrifice and that is why lamb, the symbol for sacrifice in western culture, is a good directing word in the poem. In my opinion Wordsworth's general point for this poem is to show the sacrifice that is being made so the new, civilized, developed world could thrive. First of all, the choice of a shepherd as a main character, in this not very happy story, is not random. Generally Pastoral poems in Wordsworth's era pictured shepherds as people with great connection to nature and sort of careless individuals whose love of nature fulfilled every need. However, Wordsworth takes this well known symbol of harmony with nature,the shepherd, and pictures him as a confused, frustrated, desperate and melancholic individual who is loosing what is closest to him, his sheep. In my opinion, the shepherd looses a big part of himself, which allowed for this beautiful contact with nature, along with the sheep. Also, he is being torn to pieces by the confusion caused by double meaning of the sheep. On one hand the sheep are his portal to the conversation and relationship with nature and on the other hand, from the civilized, capitalist point of view they are just a commodity which should serve the shepherd in making profit. I think the shepherd desperately tries to hold on to the old ways and looks for the doorway to nature through his everyday work with the sheep. However, the world has changed, and the passage to the natural is getting more and more narrow along with his narrowing flock. The last of the flock is a great metaphor for the detachment from nature, the idea which characterizes the Lyrical Ballads.