The speaker of the poem is a schoolboy who loves to rise in a summer morning when birds are singing on the trees. The boy gets entertained by the company of the hunter who blows his clarion from a distance field and sweet lullabies of the skylark.
But the thing he doesn’t like is going to school which pulls all his happiness and joy. He is tired and even puzzled under the strict supervision of his teacher. Instead of enjoying the pleasures of summer, the child has to spend many tense hours in his school nor in the garden where he can learn many things in interesting ways with nature.
A bird can never sing a sweet song when he if caged. Similarly, a child if remained under the umbrella of annoying fear and tension, the skepticism of his teacher can never enjoy the natural instincts of joy and playfulness.
In last stanzas, he tried to make understand his parents that if a budding child is picked and swept off in the early stage of life, where there is no one to care for then how he could grow in the mature plant.