William Wordsworth

I found William Wordsworth’s language easier to read than that of Blake. He used simplistic verse and tried to relate to everyday ideas. I do, however, recognize that sometimes his words surpass the simple ideas that are seen on the surface. Wordsworth is very in tune with nature and he uses the nature around him to inspire him. Though I am sometimes lost in his writings, I do feel like I can envision where he is and what is surrounding him. He provides a wonderful sense of imagery. Some of the descriptions I liked the most come from “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”:

These waters, rolling form their mountain- springs
With a sweet inland murmur. –Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, (202)

Among the woods and copses lost themselves
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of supportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms…(202-203)

I was also drawn to Wordsworth’s poem, “We Are Seven”. This, perhaps, is another example of how Wordsworth uses simplicity to convey mature issues. In the poem, he describes how a child feels and deals with death. He describes how an eight year old girl still plays with her brother and sister who are buried in the church yard near her house. She tells the narrator that even though two of her siblings are gone, they are still seven. “How many are you then,” said I,/ “If they two are in Heaven?”/ The little Maiden did reply,/ “O Master! we are seven.” (201). This may be Wordsworth’s idea of portraying deep denial of death. He may be trying to show the reader that though the child is not necessarily denying her sibling’s deaths, as we age we sometimes revert to feelings such as these to qualify our own attempt to escape reality.

Lastly, I found the poems about Lucy to be a strange connection between nature and death or ending of natural beauty. While Lucy may be Wordsworth describing the moon, he makes note to the end of Lucy several times:
Into a Lover’s head-/ “O mercy!” to myself I cried,/ “If Lucy should be dead!”
(214)
She liv’d unknown, and few could know/ When Lucy ceas’d to be;/ But she is in her
Grave, and Oh!/ The difference to me! (214)

In all three poems Wordsworth seems to be enamored with death. He describes these intense feelings of nature and then portrays their demise. It seems that Lucy could be a metaphor for what is fleeting in life, or fleeting in nature.