From THE PRELUDE
Uploaded by hurr.i.cane.87 on Jan 02, 2005
FROM THE PRELUDE
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The poem starts with a very calm, placid and serene mood but ends with a sense of foreboding in the poet, and with a sense of loss of creativity. The poem is remarkable for its simple thought, lucid language and pictorial quality and it reflects an important event concerning Wordsworth’s childhood and life.
The poem opens with a picture of a moon-blanched summer evening. The poet is found to be in a happy mood. He confesses the “act of stealth” after having stolen a boat tied to a willow tree within a rocky cave, its “usual home”. He is not supposed to take the boat and in this he feels “troubled pleasure”. There is the lurking feeling of doing something deliciously wrong.
He rowed the boat and it moved on, leaving behind it either side, small circles of water shining in the reflection of the silvery moonlight. These small water ripples finally “melted”, giving way to a single track of “sparkling light”.
However, like a man “proud of his skill” the poet moved forward “to reach a chosen point”, he fixed his eyes on top of an uneven mountain ridge. It seemed to be the “horizon’s utmost boundary”. Amidst such a splendid scenario, the lovely boat of the poet seemed to have a fairy-like appearance. He dipped the oars “lustily” into the tranquil lake. His boat moved forward like a swan.
He suddenly trembled with fear, encountering the strange sight of an enormous black peak that rose from behind the top of the uneven mountain range. It seemed to the poet that it were a human being who “upreared” its head with a “purpose of its own”. The “grim shape”, growing larger in size, seemed to stand between the poet and the stars. The poet feared that it “strode” after him with “measured motion like a living thing”. With oars trembling in his hand, the poet at once retreated from that place to reach the “covert of the willow tree”.
The appearance of such a huge black image shattered the beauty and calmness of the scenario as well as the poet’s thought process and creativity. As he went back home, he was in a “grave” and “serious” mood.
This “spectacle” remained in his mind for long. He seemed to be surrounded with blackness and emptiness. According to him, his creative muse was dead but it could also be...