Arts
Visit my magazine's website for a full analysis and commentary: https://www.troubadourmag.com/post/william-wordsworth-steals-a-boat-an-excerpt-from-the-preludeThe Boat Stealing Scene from the 1850 Prelude by William Wordsworth:One summer evening (led by her) I foundA little boat tied to a willow treeWithin a rocky cove, its usual home.Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping inPushed from the shore. It was an act of stealthAnd troubled pleasure, nor without the voiceOf mountain-echoes did my boat move on;Leaving behind her still, on either side,Small circles glittering idly in the moon,Until they melted all into one trackOf sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen pointWith an unswerving line, I fixed my viewUpon the summit of a craggy ridge,The horizon’s utmost boundary; far aboveWas nothing but the stars and the grey sky.She was an elfin pinnace; lustilyI dipped my oars into the silent lake,And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boatWent heaving through the water like a swan;When, from behind that craggy steep till thenThe horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge,As if with voluntary power instinct,Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,And growing still in stature the grim shapeTowered up between me and the stars, and still,For so it seemed, with purpose of its ownAnd measured motion like a living thing,Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,And through the silent water stole my wayBack to the covert of the willow tree;There in her mooring-place I left my bark, –And through the meadows homeward went, in graveAnd serious mood; but after I had seenThat spectacle, for many days, my brainWorked with a dim and undetermined senseOf unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughtsThere hung a darkness, call it solitudeOr blank desertion. No familiar shapesRemained, no pleasant images of trees,Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;But huge and mighty forms, that do not liveLike living men, moved slowly through the mindBy day, and were a trouble to my dreams.