Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson Part 2

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert.

_To a Skylark_.

4. A WANDERING VOICE? Lacking substantial existence.

6. TWOFOLD SHOUT. Twofold, because consisting of a double note. Compare Wordsworth's sonnet, _To the Cuckoo_, l. 4:

"With its twin notes inseparably paired."

Wordsworth employs the word "shout" in several of his Cuckoo descriptions. See _The Excursion_, ii. l. 346-348 and vii. l. 408; also the following from _Yes! it was the Mountain Echo_:

Yes! it was the mountain echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo; Giving to her sound for sound.

NUTTING

------It seems a day (I speak of one from many singled out), One of those heavenly days that cannot die; When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, I left our cottage threshold, sallying forth 5 With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung, A nutting-crook in hand, and turned my steps Toward some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint, Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds, Which for that service had been husbanded, 10 By exhortation of my frugal Dame,-- Motley accoutrement, of power to smile At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth, More ragged than need was! O'er pathless rocks, Through beds of matted fern and tangled thickets, 15 Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook Unvisited, where not a broken bough Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign Of devastation; but the hazels rose Tall and erect, with tempting cl.u.s.ters hung, 20 A virgin scene! A little while I stood, Breathing with such suppression of the heart As joy delights in; and with wise restraint Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed The banquet; or beneath the trees I sate 25 Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played; A temper known to those, who, after long And weary expectation, have been blest With sudden happiness beyond all hope.

Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves 30 The violets of five seasons reappear And fade, unseen by any human eye; Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on Forever; and I saw the sparkling foam, And, with my cheek on one of those green stones 35 That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees, Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep, I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound, In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay Tribute to ease; and of its joy secure, 40 The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air. Then up I rose, And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless ravage: and the shady nook 45 Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being: and unless I now Confound my present feelings with the past, Ere from the mutilated bower I turned 50 Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings, I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.-- Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand 55 Touch,--for there is a spirit in the woods.

5. OUR COTTAGE THRESHOLD. "The house at which I was boarded during the time I was at school." (Wordsworth's note, 1800). The school was the Hawkshead School.

9. TRICKED OUT=_dressed_. The verb "to trick"="to dress" is derived probably from the noun, "trick" in the sense of 'a dexterous artifice,'

'a touch.' See "Century Dictionary."

CAST-OFF WEEDS=_cast-off clothes_. Wordsworth originally wrote 'of Beggar's weeds.' What prompted him to change the expression?

10. FOR THAT SERVICE. i.e., for nutting.

12-13. OF POWER TO SMILE AT THORNS=_able to defy_, etc. Not because of their strength, but because so ragged that additional rents were of small account.

21. VIRGIN=_unmarred, undevastated_.

31. Explain the line. Notice the poetical way in which the poet conveys the idea of solitude, (l. 30-32).

33. FAIRY WATER-BREAKS=_wavelets, ripples_. _Cf_.:--

Many a silvery _water-break_ Above the golden gravel.

Tennyson, _The Brook_.

36. FLEECED WITH MOSS. Suggest a reason why the term "fleeced" has peculiar appropriateness here.

39-40. Paraphrase these lines to bring out their meaning.

43-48. THEN UP I ROSE. Contrast this active exuberant pleasure not unmixed with pain with the pa.s.sive meditative joy that the preceding lines express.

47-48. PATIENTLY GAVE UP THEIR QUIET BEING. Notice the attribution of life to inanimate nature. Wordsworth constantly held that there was a mind and all the attributes of mind in nature. _Cf_. l. 56, "for there is a spirit in the woods."

53. AND SAW THE INTRUDING SKY. Bring out the force of this pa.s.sage.

54. THEN, DEAREST MAIDEN. This is a reference to the poet's Sister, Dorothy Wordsworth.

56. FOR THERE IS A SPIRIT IN THE WOODS. _Cf. Tintern Abbey_, 101 f.

A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!

Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!

And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or starlight, thus from my first dawn 5 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The pa.s.sions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man: But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature: purifying thus 10 The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear,--until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellows.h.i.+p vouchsafed to me 15 With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 20 Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long.

And in the frosty season, when the sun 25 Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 30 The village clock tolled six--I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse, That cares not for his home,--All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase 35 And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.

So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 40 The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 45 The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star; 50 Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the gla.s.sy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 55 The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short, yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! 60 Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

1-14. In what other poems does Wordsworth describe "the education of nature?"

8. Nature's teaching is never sordid nor mercenary, but always purifying and enn.o.bling.

10. PURIFYING, also SANCTIFYING (l. 12), refer to "Soul" (l. 2).

12-14. Human cares are lightened in proportion to our power of sympathising with nature. The very beatings of our heart acquire a certain grandeur from the fact that they are a process of nature and linked thus to the general life of things. It is possible that "beatings of the heart" may figuratively represent the mere play of the emotions, and thus have a bearing upon the words "pain and fear" in line 13.

15. FELLOWs.h.i.+P. Communion with nature in her varying aspects as described in the following lines.

31. VILLAGE CLOCK. The village was Hawkshead.

35. CONFEDERATE. Qualifies "we," or "games." Point out the different shades of meaning for each agreement.

42. TINKLED LIKE IRON. "When very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake _tinkle_." S. T. Coleridge in _The Friend_, ii, 325 (1818).

42-44. The keenness of Wordsworth's sense perceptions was very remarkable. His susceptibility to impressions of sound is well ill.u.s.trated in this pa.s.sage, which closes (l. 43-46) with a color picture of striking beauty and appropriateness.

50. REFLEX=_reflection_. _Cf_.:

Like the _reflex_ of the moon Seen in a wave under green leaves.

Sh.e.l.ley, _Prometheus Unbound_, iii, 4.

In later editions Wordsworth altered these lines as follows: