WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Wordsworth,s verdict after Blake's death reflected many opinions of the time: "There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott." Blake's influence grew through Pre-Raphaelites all over Britain.

This last statement allows me to introduce the next romantic poet: W.Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth’s poems are defined as poems of nature, but in his early life he was dominated by the French Revolution and the libertarian ideals of the time and that was also reflected in some of their poems. 1 2

Following this revolutionary ideas, he repudiated not only the Christian faith but also the family and marriage institutions. Narrating Wordsworth's progressed out of the Church to the position of "at least a semi-atheist" (Coleridge's phrase).3

Inspired by the French Revolution, he created elements of a new type of poetry, based on the “real language of men” so his poems where written in the language of the common man and talked about real but common situations.1

Wordsworth also met Taylor Coleridge and developed a big friendship with him that brought them to produce an important work in the English Romantic movement which name was Lyrical Ballads.1

The poem we are going to analyse is a fragment of “The Last of the Flock” which is included in this volume and talks about a man who has been forced to sell his lambs through poverty and now he feels extremely sad because he has lost his last one.

In this poem we can find the Wordsworth’s ideals about religion in this moment and also we can observe that the topic is a story of a common man with a common life. Wordsworth proves with that poem that a normal story can be inspiration to make poetry too.1

When I was young, a single man,
And after youthful follies ran.
Though little given to care and thought,
Yet, so it was, a ewe I bought;
And other sheep from her I raised,
As healthy sheep as you might see,
And then I married, and was rich
As I could wish to be;
Of sheep I numbered a full score,
And every year increas'd my store.

Year after year my stock it grew,
And from this one, this single ewe,
Full fifty comely sheep I raised,
As sweet a flock as ever grazed!
Upon the mountain did they feed;
They throve, and we at home did thrive.
--This lusty lamb of all my store
Is all that is alive;
And now I care not if we die,
And perish all of poverty.

Six children, Sir! had I to feed,
Hard labour in a time of need!
My pride was tamed, and in our grief,
I of the parish ask'd relief.
They said I was a wealthy man;
My sheep upon the mountain fed,
And it was fit that thence I took
Whereof to buy us bread:
"Do this; how can we give to you,"
They cried, "what to the poor is due?"

I sold a sheep as they had said,
And bought my little children bread,
And they were healthy with their food;
For me it never did me good.
A woeful time it was for me,
To see the end of all my gains,
The pretty flock which I had reared
With all my care and pains,
To see it melt like snow away!
For me it was a woeful day.

Another still! and still another!
A little lamb, and then its mother!
It was a vein that never stopp'd,
Like blood-drops from my heart they dropp'd.
Till thirty were not left alive
They dwindled, dwindled, one by one,
And I may say that many a time
I wished they all were gone:
They dwindled one by one away;
For me it was a woeful day.

To wicked deeds I was inclined,
And wicked fancies cross'd my mind,
And every man I chanc'd to see,
I thought he knew some ill of me.
No peace, no comfort could I find,
No ease, within doors or without,
And crazily, and wearily
I went my work about.
Oft-times I thought to run away;
For me it was a woeful day.

Sir! 'twas a precious flock to me,
As dear as my own children be;
For daily with my growing store
I loved my children more and more.
Alas! it was an evil time;
God cursed me in my sore distress,
I prayed, yet every day I thought
I loved my children less;
And every week, and every day,
My flock, it seemed to melt away.

They dwindled. Sir, sad sight to see!
From ten to five, from five to three,
A lamb, a weather, and a ewe;
And then at last, from three to two;
And of my fifty, yesterday
I had but only one,
And here it lies upon my arm,
Alas! and I have none;
To-day I fetched it from the rock;
It is the last of all my flock.4

Perhaps he can’t understand why the church didn’t want to help him to keep his Flock which was the only way to earn money in his family.

The flock was his happiness, and when all his lambs died his happiness died with them too. He lost the love he had to his children and his hatred to God and the Church increased for making him unhappy. He feels completely sad and desperate

The desperation is reflected in the repetitions like still and still another, they dwindled ,dwindled one by one and other expressions like Alas! and For me it was a woeful day. The last one is repeated along the poem.

In our opinion, that can be a critic to the Church because they were more interested in the monarch instead of the common people during the French Revolution.

Around 1880 the intellectual and political ideas of Wordsworth changed to become conservative. The poet was disappointed with the events in France and also changed his social circle.1

Some students of this topic like Robert.M Ryan argue that “Wordsworth does not later abandon his radical views, but rather accommodates them to the importance of public religion in the national life.”5

5 . Robert M. Ryan, The Romantic Reformation: Religious Politics in English Literature,

1789–1824. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/back/ryan.html