Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

few others have, however, used assonance with some effect. The repetition of the same vowel sound in other than end words is also occasionally called assonance:

of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing..

The skilful use of the sounds of speech results in a quality of poetry known as tone-color or melody. The basis of melody is to be sought principally in the markedly different pitch of the various vowels. In producing the sound ee, for instance, the vocal cords vibrate many times more rapidly than in pronouncing the sound uh. Consciously and unconsciously, poets avail themselves of this principle to produce subtle yet remarkable effects. Consonants, too, play a part in melody. The liquids 1, m, n, ng, and r join with the vowels to create the matchless word-music of "The Garden of Proserpine." With both consonants and vowels the possibilities are almost limitless.

Wordsworth did more than any other individual to democratize English poetry. In his famous preface to the second edition (1800) of The Lyrical Ballads he advocated the use of "the real language of men." For his poetry he chose subjects from humble life and interpreted them in terms of the loftiest thought. "The Solitary Reaper" is one of several "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland"-a tour which Wordsworth made in company with his sister Dorothy. The poem is rendered immortal by its vivid pictorial quality, its haunting melody, and its suggestive power. It is structurally perfect, each

stanza being a complete unit in the development of the

thought.

THE SOLITARY REAPER

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

The last stanza of "The Solitary Reaper" expresses, with especial reference to things heard, the chief value of experience. "I Wandered Lonely" bears witness to a similar benefit and delight derivable from things seen. What would be the value of a visit to the Grand Canyon, of spending an hour in Westminster Abbey, or of witnessing a performance of Hamlet, if no mental impression were carried forward into the rest of life?. Culture is in part, at least—the result of a number of such impressions. Herrick's "To Daffodils," Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely," and Austin Dobson's "To Daffodils" are an interesting trio of poems. Herrick sees only the frail duration of the daffodil to which he compares human life. For Wordsworth the daffodils afford a dual pleasure: the joy of beholding, the satisfaction of philosophizing remembrance. Dobson, consciously sophisticated, refers not only to the daffodils, but to his poet predecessors who drew inspiration from them. In reading these poems it is perhaps stimulating to bear in mind the possibility that the greatest poem on the theme is yet unwritten. Wordsworth owed an immeasurable debt to his wife and to his sister Dorothy. Mrs. Wordsworth composed the third and fourth lines of the last stanza of "I Wandered Lonely." We quote the account from Dorothy's journal of the incident which inspired the poem:

"We saw a few daffodils close to the water-side.

But as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore. They grew among the mossy stones, about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as a pillow, for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake . . . they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing."

I WANDERED LONELY

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

In its treatment of the flower, the above poem is essentially modern, as are, for instance, Bryant's "To the Fringed Gentian" and Emerson's "The Rhodora." From the latter we quote:

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

With "I Wandered Lonely" let us compare Waller's "Go, Lovely Rose," a poem which exhibits a preWordsworthian interpretation of floral loveliness. Two widely known American poems of this type are "The Wild Honeysuckle" by the Revolutionary poet Philip Freneau, and "My Life Is Like the Summer Rose," by another politician poet, Richard Henry Wilde. Herrick's "To Daffodils" has already been mentioned. The last two lines of the poem below may be seen at Charlottesville, Virginia, engraved on the tomb of a Miss Maude Woods, who won a prize for beauty at the PanAmerican Exposition (Buffalo, 1901) and died within a year.

GO, LOVELY ROSE!

Go, lovely Rose!

Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

« PoprzedniaDalej »