Similar depictions of the wind appear in “ Lucy Gray” and in “Surprised by Joy-Impatient as the Wind.” The ghost of Lucy Gray sings in the final stanza, “a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind,” which evokes a ghostly image to the reader. The painter’s menacing wind disturbs the narrator because he does not remember Peele Castle that way. The lightening, the fierce wind, and trampling The wind in Wordsworth’s depictions of nature tend to evince a chilly and/or frightening setting, and in “Elegiac Stanzas” the rough wind appears harsh and hurtful to the narrator. The writer seeks to establish a warm, gentle ambiance in “Elegiac Stanzas” along with other poems also, and he does so exceptionally well. In “ The Wanderer” Wordsworth writes that the wise man “beheld the sun/ Rise up, and bathe the world in light!” Within both of these pieces as well as in “Elegiac Stanzas,” the sunlight gives a peaceful and joyous impression to both the narrator and the reader. Here also, the narrator looks at the light as a wonderfully happy part of nature. This sweet light also appears in “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” and “The Wanderer.” In “ Westminster Bridge,” Wordsworth writes that “Never did the sun more beautifully steep/ In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill,” when describing the morning light in the city. He wishes that Beaumont would have depicted this in his painting instead of the stormy darkness. He spent a month living by the castle and noticed how the place attracted “the sweetest” sunbeams. Wordsworth demonstrates through this image his fondness for the light of the sun. The narrator wishes that the painter of Peele Castle would have given the scene a brighter and more peaceful setting, rather than a dismally dark and stormy one. Of peaceful years a chronicle of heaven:. Thou shouldst have seem’d a treasure-house, a mine Wordsworth’s depiction of the sun in “Elegiac Stanzas” reveals that the poet believes a connection exists between light and happiness. Wordsworth utilizes three nature related subjects- the wind, the sea, and the sun-in “Elegiac Stanzas,” and these topics also show up in other great works by the poet with similar descriptions that reveal Wordsworth’s personal emotions connected with them. In his “Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm,” Wordsworth proves the ability to take several subjects that often appear in romantic poetry and create a fantastic poem about memory and loss. Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.-Īs a romantic poet, William Wordsworth employs many images of nature in his work. Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!īut welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,Īnd frequent sights of what is to be borne! The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.įarewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, I love to see the look with which it braves,Ĭased in the unfeeling armour of old time, That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,Īnd this huge Castle, standing here sublime, O 'tis a passionate Work!-yet wise and well, This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. This work of thine I blame not, but commend Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old So once it would have been,-'tis so no more Ī power is gone, which nothing can restore Such Picture would I at that time have made:Īnd seen the soul of truth in every part,Ī steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. The very sweetest had to thee been given. Of peaceful years a chronicle of heaven. Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pileīeside a sea that could not cease to smile The light that never was, on sea or land, To express what then I saw and add the gleam, Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.Īh! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand, I could have fancied that the mighty Deep No mood, which season takes away, or brings: How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!įour summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: The Peele Castle is on the coast of Lancashire, near the village of Rampside where Wordsworth had spent a month his time visiting a cousin in 1796. Sir George Beaumont was a wealthy landowner and an admiring friend of Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge he also had a fair reputation in his day as a landscape painter. Wordsworth indicated in a letter that he had first seen the picture of Peele Castle when staying at the house of the painter, Sir George Beaumont, in London in April of 1806.
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