"A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."
Now it seems to me that if Peter realised that, he reached the highest point possible to a poet. A flower in itself is more wonderful than anything that can be imagined about it. It is a beautiful part of the universal mystery—just as wonderful and mysterious as a constellation. The primrose is perfect in itself and its charm is not increased by the fact that men have "sought out many inventions" about it. To the scientist it is a gamopetalous plant, to the politician the emblem of an aristocratic political league, and to the student curious in ancient philosophy a possible key to the Pythagorean system. There you have "inventions" with a vengeance, but in reality it is simply a yellow primrose, and it is nothing more. If Peter Bell was able to look at it in that simple way he achieved an intellectual feat that is almost impossible to us in this age of profound explanations that explain nothing.
"What's that?"
"The chicken that had its head sticking through the fevvers tumbled out, and the old hen pushed it back under her with her beak."
"Good for her. Run along now."
But it will not do to scold Wordsworth too much for this mistake about Peter Bell, for he shows in other poems that when he was at his best he regarded things from Peter's simple point of view:
"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!"
There is nothing in that to suggest that he considered a rainbow as anything but a rainbow. There is no hint of a study of the laws of refraction or of the symbolism which makes the rainbow a pledge that the world will never again be destroyed by water. In fact, we might parody Peter Bell and say:
A rainbow on the horizon's rim
A glorious rainbow was to him,
And it was nothing more.
Because Wordsworth, the man, accepted the rainbow as he did when a child he gave us a perfect gem of poetry. And everything else in the world is just as poetical if approached in the same childlike spirit. But this is almost impossible because of the "many inventions."