What does "An Octopus" mean?

At this point I don’t really feel qualified to comment on the nature imagery and/or quasi-sarcastic fluff (did we really decide on it in class?) comprising the majority of “An Octopus.” The conclusion of the poem, however, stood out to me because of its distinct break from the flood of images.

The idea that “the forest … by its beauty // stimulates the moral vigor of its citizens,” is almost immediately juxtaposed alongside an allusion to Adam, and where the rest of humanity was lacking with respect to him – specifically, in our “Emotionally sensitive,” “hard” hearts. The argument is presented that by breaking from the beauty of nature human simultaneously break from morality, that we lose “happiness,” that “spiritual substance,” of the “soul itself,” in establishing a “remote” interaction with nature. This same remoteness is described as “damned,” in relation to the “fossil flower,” and further extended to include one Henry James, “damned by the public for … // restraint,” where “restraint,” is described as distinct from “decorum.” In “He Digesteth Harde Yron,” Moore asserts “the power of the visible // is the invisible,” which I read as follows: what we miss, or overlook, defines the narrowness of our vision, and therefore the prejudices and biases that we rationalize into our personal interpretation of that which we do see. Similarly, in overlooking the beauty of nature we also cut ourselves off from moral accountability in our dealings with nature – we lose sight of the happiness that our soul could be “persuaded” towards, and our wisdom becomes “remote,” of the same derived, “high-sounding,” utterly useless variety described in “Poetry.”

I also read a sense of finality in the repetition of the statement, “Neatness of finish!” The exclamation invoked a strong image of robotic behavior – of mechanical, inhuman efficiency. The idea that the ice-octopus, the glacier, with its limited “capacity for fact,” acts with “Relentless accuracy,” was rather chilling; in our drive for “[neatness] of finish,” and “relentless accuracy,” are we similarly crushing everything in our path? The final images of the poem depict “flattened mats of branches shrunk in trying to escape,” with “this glassy octopus,” described as “a claw.” These images, juxtaposed alongside earlier descriptions of “bear’s ears and kittentails,” (I realize I am generalizing here) present a striking contrast.

To summarize, I am unclear as to the author’s intention; nature is lauded as providing a moralizing avenue for mankind to appreciate, but our blindness to its beauty is linked to physical remoteness, mechanical efficiency, and moral failing that are perhaps further linked to the potential for glacial destruction. I also note, however, that the description of nature in the earlier stanzas is not entirely happy and cheerful; there is a certain element of destructive potential in the nature imagery as well.

Your thoughts on my interpretation are appreciated; if we don’t get to go over this in class I would still like to have a clearer understanding of “An Octopus,” and its intricacies.