Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The Augusta Seminary Annual. 3. from Nature, or from JVIan, or from God. Hence, when we study AVordsworth we must turn with him to Those obstinate questionings of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized. High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised. He nev6r humanized, as did Cliaucer, the spirits of natural ob- jects ; no fairy bands pass before him in tlie forest, some wearing the badge of the flower, others of the leaf ; no nymphs ai-e in his rivers, no dryads in his trees. It is true His daily teachers had been woods and rills. The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills; But, having felt the deep emotions caused by these outward things, he studies out their meaning, and there comes a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit. If we wish to follow him we must learn to look on Natm ' e with that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude, for in him was fulfilled the prophesy he made of his sister, his wild ecstacies were matured into a sober pleasm-e, his mind was a mansion for all lovely forms, his memory had become a dwelling-place for all sweet sounds and harmonies. Elizabeth T. Xewman.

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2 The Augusta Seminary Annual. He reminds us of his own Canace, for we feel when he heard the birds sing, that right anon, he wiste what they ment, Right by hir song, and knew all hir entent. We expect him to say — So was I with the song Thorow ravished, that till late and longe Ne wist I in what place I was, ne where. Rejoicing mth a happy, childish joy, he does not stop to analyze his feelings or muse upon the influences of Xature ; he gives only the direct impression made upon the eye and ear ; he knows noth- ing of the burthen of the mystery Of all this unintelligible world. To him the cuckoo was a bird making glad the spring-tiuie, not an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery. It told to him no tale of visionary hours ; to him the daisy brought a smile, not thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. All about him is the freshness of a dream, all around him trail the clouds of glory ; the shades of the prison-house have not yet begun to close upon the growing boy; he simply revels in the sunshine while he sings a song as joyous and unpre- meditated as- that of the birds themselves. Chaucer belongs to the spring, to the Maytime of English poetry, but we tiirn the leaves of history and our eyes rest upon another who has learned to look on Xature not as in the hour of thought- less youth, upon one to whose ears comes oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. It is in Wordsworth that we find the maturity of the love whose childhood we have seen in Chaucer. Wordsworth does not paint Mature, but arrests and interprets its impressions. He is not, says Hutton, specifically the poet of Nature, nor the poet of Man, nor the poet of Truth, nor the poet of Religion ; he is the poet of all separate, living emanations

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The Augusta Seminary Annual. Natural Scenery in The Idylls of The King. AS the painter mingles his colors in forming the background of a pictm ' e, here deepening the shadows, there lightening the gloom, so Tennyson has made the natural scenery in his Idylls of the King a background for the legends of the Round Table. See how dark and heavy hang the clouds over the dim land of Cameliard. The wild beasts in the damp woods slink fearfully away, dreading they know not what, and the gray-crested waves break restlessly on the rocky shore ; but at last the sky breaks forth in flame, a child is borne from out the glow, and Merlin the Wizard cries : The King. The pleasant fields are spangled with daisies, the stream flows merrily between its green banks, and the bees hover eagerly over their flowery treasures, when Gareth, the gallant son of King Lot, follows the fairy Lynette through the tangled woods and through the open fields, till he comes to the silver, gleaming river, on the banks of which stand the silken tents of the four giants, the last of whom he overthrows as the east is dimpled with the flush of the rising sun and as the dew glistens upon the grass. Listen ! the birds are singing on branch and twig ; the fish dart in and out between the little islets gennned with flowers, and the mowers in the field are swinging their long scythes, wlieu gentle Enid, in her faded silk, comes riding by mth tear-dimmed eyes and heavy heart. The rain falls fast and fierce, the trees ci-eak and groan, while the lurid lightning I3lays round the huge old oak in whose hollow the Avily Vivien and Merlin the far-famed Wizard cower. x bove the rumbling of the thunder, Vivien is heard shrilly pleading for the secret of his power. At last she gains her end, and hi the heart of the time-worn oak old Merlin lies as dead, And lost to life and use and name and fame. Hark ! the poplars are soughing, sighing, and the wind moans sadly through the boughs. Elaine, the maid of Astolat, is dead,