Question

Summary of the poem Nightingale and the glow worm

Answer 1

The Nightingale and the Glow worm by William Cowper is a poem about a nightingale and a clever glow worm.

The nightingale sings all day long and beautifies its surroundings with its melodious voice. At night, the nightingale who is hungry after singing, hunts down the glow worm as his meal. However in the end he loses his prey.

The glow worm being a quick thinker starts to compliment and praise the songbird. The nightingale listens to the worm with pride and is pleased with the glow worm's sweet words. The glow worm further continues to mention that as the nightingale brightens and makes the day cheerful the glow worm decorates the night with its light. He says that they both are the creatures of god and they both have their purposes and hence should live in harmony with each other.
With his eloquent and smart oration the glow worm saves himself.

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Answer 2

this poem, the poet tells us a story with a moral. However, he envisions a very noble role for the poet. He feels that the poet should be responsible for more than just teaching his readers a lesson. He should also indicate to them where that lesson should be applied. That is exactly what Cowper does in this poem. He tells us about the nightingale and the glow-worm to teach us about mutual respect. In addition to this, he tells us that it is warring factions that should learn this lesson. The nightingale and the glow-worm are thus symbols for the leaders and followers of different political and religious groups. Such groups only serve to divide mankind on the basis of artificially created categories. They teach their adherents to discriminate against those whom we feel are different from us in their persuasion. However, this is not the correct attitude for one to adopt towards his fellow men.


The poet feels that we should be able to respect differences. Every man is unique and he has unique abilities. These abilities and talents should not be seen as a basis for alienating him. Instead, his uniqueness should be valued by his fellow men. All of us human beings should be united n our efforts to make the world a better place. We should all aim for communal harmony because if we all make the same amount of effort, then we will all reap the corresponding benefits equally as well. Life is short, and so we should not waste time over hatred and discrimination. We should love our fellow man and make the most of this life.