Three Wordsworth Sonnets

This sonnet taken from the Miscellaneous Sonnets in 'Poems of the Imagination' is beautifully typical of the uncluttered Romantic style that will be forever identified with Wordsworth. Strongly visual & boldly seeming to rhyme with the broad Cumbrian accent of its author, it is almost like the prelude to a 'Boy's Own' adventure. The narrator pondering on the magnificence & mystery of a great sailing ship & its promise of voyages to the unknown & adventure on the high seas.

With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,

With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,
Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly Vessel did I then espy
Come like a Giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the Bay she strode,
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.
This Ship was nought to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a Lover's look;
This Ship to all the rest did I prefer:
When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir:
On went She, and due north her journey took.

To the Planet Venus

Upon its approximation (as an Evening Star) to the Earth, Jan. 1838.

WHAT strong allurement draws, what spirit guides,
Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer
Thou com'st to man's abode the spot grew dearer
Night after night? True is it Nature hides
Her treasures less and less.--Man now presides
In power, where once he trembled in his weakness;
Science advances with gigantic strides;
But are we aught enriched in love and meekness?
Aught dost thou see, bright Star! of pure and wise
More than in humbler times graced human story;
That makes our hearts more apt to sympathise
With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory,
When earth shall vanish from our closing eyes,
Ere we lie down in our last dormitory?

~1838.

It is interesting to note that 1838 was a year that started off less than auspicious when in January a fire destroyed Lloyd's Coffee House & the Royal Exchange in London. In the same year the 'People's Charter' is drawn up demanding universal suffrage by the Chartists. The Chartists were descended in part from organisations like Thomas Attwood's 'Birmingham Political Movement' & represented the first working class labour movement in the world.

In the very same year that the inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin & the scientist Ernst Mach are born the sonnet 'To The Planet Venus' is an interesting image not only referring to the astronomical body itself, but as a metaphor for human aspiration. A veritable symbol of science & of 'gigantic strides'. Wordsworth doesn't disappoint us with the caveat that although 'Man now presides in power' he shouldn't become too hubristic. This happens exactly where we expect the volta & the poem has an interesting & slightly unusual ABBA CDCD EFEF EF rhyme scheme which is masterfully done.

Valedictory Sonnet

Closing the Volume of Sonnets published in 1838.

SERVING no haughty Muse, my hands have here
Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre;
Both to allure the casual Loiterer,
And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them be--
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!

~1838.

His farewell sonnet however, seems to labour a little under its rhyme scheme of ABBA CDDC EFFE EF. I also feel that he was possibly having a little fun with his audience considering his reference to 'flowerets', a possible nod to the famous 1802 poem 'The Inward Eye'. This is more popularly known now as 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud'.

One of the many 'Wordsworthian' effects, if there can ever possibly be such an adjective, that never fails to impress me was his fantastic use of sound. Even if you believe this last sonnet is a little clumsy in its delivery compared to the others in the series, it just does seem to sound right. It is almost as if he has a monopoly on forms of aural plasticity that defy conventions of rhyme & metre. Even when he writes a jovial, slightly sentimental valedictory poem like this one, it does not sound overly or indeed overtly clichéd.