Anthology of Ideas

In the few lines that make up a single scene of Wordsworth’s “Prelude”, the personified Nature encourages the young Wordsworth to steal a boat and admonishes him for failing to resist the urge. Although the young Wordsworth only focused on the method Nature used to correct him, the adult Wordsworth recognized the contradiction and believed that Nature used this event to guide him and help him understand and control his human desires, and, in the process, demonstrate that the relationship between an individual and nature is the same as that of parent and child. Overall, this scene emphasizes the the contrast between the nature of an individual and Nature, the experience and the perception, and the child and the adult. Through these contrasts Wordsworth demonstrates that his perception of his surroundings were influenced by his own emotions and feelings as a child and by what he, as an adult, perceives the emotions he felt or should have felt as a boy.

Little green Tadpole
Alone in a water bucket
Silence Splash Trickle

Chipmunk digs the ground
Buries a little green acorn
Soon to be a tree

Large lone maple tree
Emperor of the meadow
Who does it rule over

Wind whistles through trees
Boughs and branches sway from it
A black hawk flies straight

Far above the clouds
Where heaven ends earth begins
Beauty no one sees