POEMS IN SONNET FORM BY THE SEA (Page 278) "This was composed on the beach, near Calais, in the autumn of 1802."-Wordsworth's note. As one reads the sonnet aloud, one is struck with its metrical beauties. The feeling of quiet spaciousness and calm is increased by the long syllables coming together— "broad sun," "broods o'er "-and by their vowel tones; the mind is aroused by the sudden metrical change beginning Listen"; and there is force in the pause before the word everlastingly." But the final impression of the poem comes from the delicate, solemn beauty of its idea, the belief in divine influences guiding the intuitions of childish life. We find, of course, the fuller statement of this belief in the Ode on Intimations of Immortality. 66 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER (Page 278) When Keats was about twenty, he and his friend C. C. Clarke borrowed a folio copy of Chapman's translation of Homer, and sat up together till daylight, reading it, "Keats shouting with delight as some passage of especial energy struck his imagination. At ten o'clock the next morning, Mr. Clarke found the sonnet on his breakfast-table." Structurally it is a perfect example of the so-called "Italian" sonnet (see dictionary), with its division into octave and sestet emphasized by its characteristic rimescheme. That it was Balboa, not Cortez, that discovered the Pacific disturbs not at all the imaginative effect of its wonderful sestet. IF THOU DOST LOVE ME This sonnet, and the one following, are selected from the series of so-called Sonnets from the Portuguese. The title is merely a thin literary disguise, under cover of which Elizabeth Barrett addresses Robert Browning in the days of their courtship. The passionate earnestness of feeling, it will be noticed, breaks down the divisions of octave and sestet, and sweeps in a single wave from the first line of the sonnet to the last. A CONSOLATION This and the following sonnet are taken from the series of one hundred and fifty-four written by Shakspere. The rime-scheme of the so-called "Shaksperian' sonnet, it will be observed, differs from that of the "Italian" sonnet, in that the former has three separate quatrains and a concluding couplet. ON HIS BLINDNESS (Page 282) This sonnet was written not long after 1652, when Milton became blind at the age of forty-four. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT The massacre upen which this sonnet was written took place in Switzerland in 1655, at the instigation of the Prince of Piedmont. The victims were the body of Protestants known as Waldenses. Milton's poem, therefore, was not alone an outcry against the physical horrors of the crime, but a burst of moral indignation against the spiritual outrage that had been committed. By the triple tyrant Milton means the Pope, with his three-tiered crown, and by the Babylonian woe the Church of Rome, considered by Milton's party to be the doomed Babylon of the Apocalypse (Cp. Revelation, chap. xvii and xviii.) ENGLAND AND SWITZERLAND, 1802 (Page 283) In 1802 Napoleon overcame Switzerland, and deprived her of her freedom. Now in 1807 he was planning to do the same with England. In the light of this it is easy to see the significance of setting the two voices of freedom side by side and the intense patriotic devotion underlying the comparison. BRIGHT STAR! WOULD I WERE STEADFAST AS THOU ART (Page 284) When Keats was setting out for Italy on what he knew was his last voyage, and the ship had been beating about the Channel for a fortnight, he landed for a brief respite on the Dorsetshire coast. "The bright beauty of the day and the scene," writes his biographer, "revived the poet's drooping heart, and the inspiration remained with him for some time even after his return to the ship. It was then that he composed that sonnet of solemn tenderness. I know of nothing written afterwards." THE TERROR OF DEATH Written in 1818, soon after the completion of Endymion. Contrasting the sonnet on Chapman's Homer, we note that this follows the structure of the Shaksperian sonnet, the introduction filling the three quatrains and the conclusion the couplet. THE INNER VISION The teaching-known as transcendentalism-that the inner life has a reality and importance beyond the outer, as shown in this poem, has the greater interest for us because Wordsworth reached it after a period during which the influences of materialistic belief bore strongly upon him. ON THE CASTLE OF CHILLON (Page 288) Though this poem was prefixed to Byron's longer narrative poem, The Prisoner of Chillon, it was written later, after the poet had learned of the story of Bonnivard, a former prisoner of the Castle. In the early sixteenth century Bonnivard stood out for the liberty of the people of Geneva, and in consequence suffered exile for ten years, and imprisonment in this dungeon for six. UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE An interesting example of description for its own sake, not, as is more usual with Wordsworth, leading to a reflective passage. The sonnet was written on the roof of a coach as Wordsworth was leaving for France. ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE REPUBLIC VENETIAN The loss of freedom by Venice calls forth this tribute to her former glories, but is too remote to have the same effect as the overthrow of Switzerland's liberty (see sonnet on England and Switzerland, 1802). References to historic circumstances in the earlier life of Venice occur in the first part of the poem, that of the eighth line referring to a ceremony, "marrying the Adriatic," instituted, after a victory in 1177, to symbolize the city's maritime supremacy. WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE (Page 289) The "Royal Saint" was Henry VI, who founded the college and began to build the chapel, but left it incomplete, to be finished in a later reign. It is a late Gothic building, with a beauty of design and an elaborateness of ornament that has made it the most admired and famous of college chapels. DESIDERIA "This was in fact suggested by my daughter Catharine long after her death."-Wordsworth's note. LONDON, 1802 (Page 290) This and the two following sonnets were composed on the return of Wordsworth from France, where he had been impressed by the earnestness of the Revolution and the desolation it had caused. The "vanity and parade" of his own country impressed him in contrast, and the first two of the sonnets are a strong expression of his feeling. THE SAME (Page 291) It is interesting to notice the effect of putting the negative part of the poem first, and reserving for the end the strong, uplifting characterization of Milton's noble qualities. The "study" of such a sonnet as this consists in reading it again and again. WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY WHAT HAS TAMED (Page 291) From the feeling of disappointment and distrust of the two preceding sonnets comes the reaction expressed in this, the final sonnet of the series. POEMS IN PLAYFUL MOOD THE LAST LEAF (Page 296) One of the author's earliest poems "suggested by the appearance of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental specimen in his cocked hat and knee breeches, with his buckled shoes and his sturdy cane." |