I’ve been thinking about this word today. The thing that struck me was that it is defining a noun, “summer,” as an activity, “unbosoming.” Can anyone think of examples where this is commonly done?

This question falls into the context of our discussion on the poet’s relationship to images: can he capture them or do they always move for him? I noticed that besides this place where the summer becomes an activity that there are many other strange movements:

The third stanza has a bunch of movement in the images and even the images themselves (in the context of this poem) are active
an image: disturbs
the crocus: opening its mouth
flowers: breed
water: (washing) cools, is spilt
an image: born, hastens
life: forks
image: changes
flowers: drop
fresh images: surround, catch

I’m not sure what to make of this, but it appears that the poet is finding movement in everything and that the movement, not the thing itself, is what he is forced to examine. Note, the poet himself is always walking, stepping. Further, the first stanza has a few more interesting observation about the poet’s freedom to move: his heart thunders and slows and there is discord with his surroundings. It is this movement that is free, that causes him to be a stranger and that allows him to find rare grief and joy.

What is this movement, this voice within his ribs? His poetry. What does all that mean? Beats me. But, I’ll try to think out this theory. I’ve been thinking of the painter who sees everything in his surroundings as a plane of color, not the thing itself. If the poet is to be thought of similarly, he wouldn’t see his surroundings as an image but as evidence of change. This changing is a movement within himself, his voice, his poetry, etc., but it would never let himself stay in the unchanging moment.

Thus, the summer becomes an activity, an unbosoming, while non-poets may see the summer as a static event and thus be captured in its momentary prison. The color of a flower, for the poet, is not just the color but it is the (now i want to say unbosoming of the summer) evidence that the summer acts change and it holds at once the birth and death of summer.

Another note along the same lines: The second stanza’s “And so complain” is in a weird place. It could be read that because the summer’s hold is loosened and the colors melt that he thus complains. Like he is forced to step and summer is forced to change so he is witness to a changing an unbosoming as opposed to a momentary season’s humour.

(I always like to think of how this would reflect on the actual poet’s writing and what it would mean for him to take the poet as a subject)