The motif of song and singing pervades the poem. The boy is “singing as the farm was home” (Line 11), which can be both literally and figuratively understood; no doubt at times he was actually singing, but the word also refers to his exultation and general delight. Even the farm animals respond in song to his herding, which is described in terms of a musical instrument: “[T]he calves / Sang to my horn” (Line 16). The sound of “the pebbles of the holy streams” is another kind of music, and the poet hears in it “the sabbath” that “rang slowly” (Line 17).

Several lines later another figurative expression appears, as something musical emerges from an unlikely source: “the tunes from the chimneys” (Line 20). Time also has its music, which the speaker acknowledges even as he describes its role in bringing his childhood to an end. He refers to time as allowing “In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs” (Line 43). Time may rob him of the joys of his precious childhood—his “morning songs”—but it may still be part of a larger harmony of life, the melody of which sweeps on (“tuneful turning”), even if childhood does not.