Stirring up the hornets' nest

Am I getting too cynical for all this?

The question arises in relation to my Concepts of Nature class, which today discussed three typical examples of nineteenth-century American nature poetry: "To a Waterfowl" and "To the Fringed Gentian" by William Cullen Bryant and Longfellow's "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz" (links here, here, and here). Students' responses were mixed: some complained that the poems were "dry" and full of "Old English language" (ha!) and they didn't know whether "fringed gentian" might refer to a space alien or an obscure nautical tool, but others found the poems more inspiring and exhilarating than anything else we've read this semester.

I brought them down to earth with a thud when I asked, "If nature serves as such a wonderful nurse-maid, providing nurture and care and moral uplift to those brave enough to follow her untrodden paths, why don't we send out all our infants to be raised by wolves?"

Pause.

"And come to think of it, if we're looking for moral lessons in nature, why focus on the fringed gentian or the lovely lone waterfowl instead of, say, the slime mold or the parasitic wasp?"

Ruined the moment. Killed it. Stomped right down on that exhilaration and uplift. I mean, here we all are oohing and ahhing over Bryant and Longfellow's raptures over nature and I have to stir up a hornet's nest.

Don't worry: they're non-lethal hornets. If you ignore them, they will go away, but you may find them again next time you look behind a fringed gentian.