"When a lengthened pause
Of silence came and baffled his best skill,
Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake."
The Prelude, v. 379 f.
ELEGIAC STANZAS
COMPOSED 1805: PUBLISHED 1807.
Further references to John Wordsworth will be found in the following poems:—To the Daisy ("Sweet Flower"), Elegiac Verses in Memory of My Brother, When to the Attractions of the Busy World, The Brothers, and The Happy Warrior.
With lines 33-40, and 57-60, compare the Intimations of Immortality, ll. 176-187:—
"What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."
A BRIEF HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SONNET
The sonnet form was introduced into English poetry by Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. Their experiments in the sonnet were published in Tottel's Miscellany in 1557, and were prompted by an admiration of Petrarch and other Italian models. Italy was almost certainly the original home of the sonnet (sonnet=Ital. sonetto, a little sound, or short strain, from suono, sound), and there it has been assiduously cultivated since the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century Dante and Petrarch gave the form a European celebrity.
The Structure of the Sonnet.
Before saying anything of its development in English poetry, it is advisable to examine an admittedly perfect sonnet, so that we may gain an idea of the nature of this type of poem, both as to form and substance. Wordsworth's sonnet upon Milton (London, 1802) will serve our purpose (see page 187). By reference to it you will observe:—