Riverbend School for Girls - Vox Fluminis Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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VOX FLUZWINIS Page Eighteen A POEM COME TRUE I read a poem the other day That said things in a funny way. It told of suns that never set And birds and fairies that always met. It told of beautiful running streams And great big fluffy, silvery dreams, Of elves that danced and sang all day. Skipping and jumping so merry and gay. I thought this silly, and well I might, Till I saw it all, the other night. -June Edmison, Grade X., York Hall. TO A BOOK WORM Of all the insects I've ever met, I like the book worm the best. as yet. Heis very quiet, but knows a lot. For he winds thru' the leaves getting all they've got. He's very powerful, so they say, 'Cause he grew to a person the other day. -June Edmison. Grade X., York Hall. THE LYRICAL BALLADS NE of the most curious a-nd interesting friendships in literature was that between Vtfilliam Wordswortli and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. VVordsworth invited Coleridge to Racedown, and in the spring of 1797 he came. It was a momentous visit. Nearly half a century later William and his sister Dorothy recalled his first arrival, how he did not keep to the high road, but leapt over a gate and bounded down the pathless field by which he cut off an angle. to meet them. And in this manner were the Lyrical Ballads made possible. V After this first visit. the XVorclsworth's moved to Alfoxden to be near Coleridge. and f-or a year they were in almost daily intercourse. The ideas of the two poets concerning poetry coinoided remarkably. Each was a stimulus to the other fbut particularly was Coleridge a stimulus to WO1'dSWOfthJ and Dorothy was an inspiration to them both-some of the descriptions in her Journal 'being almlost identical with passages from one or other of the poets. They often discussed the relative value of super-natural incidents and common life as themes for imaginative poetry. Gradually the idea came

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Page Seventeen V O X FL U MINI S To date. thirteen thousand-a good lump sum could be spent on a car, so off to the shops I went. The big imported cars were such a terrific price. I felt I couldn't possibly keep it in oil a-nd gas-after what was left of the eighty thousand had g-one. After spending a lot -of time in indecision, I finally 'bought a Daimler, selling at four thousand. To spend the remaining sixty-two thousa-nd seemed to be an impos- sible task, and to make it worse I only had two and a half hours in which to do it. . I had heard several days previous to this, that the world-famed library containing many original manuscripts and portfolios of tfhe late Sir James M. Kerry, was being offered for sale, the proceeds of which were to go to charity. On some vague intuition I went up to the Kerry estate and made the representative ain offer. I became the next owner of the library for a m-ere song fthat is, a mere song for such a famous collectionj- sixty-two thousand dollars. just then- Gwen, wake up. You're already fifteen minutes late for your music lessonf, And did I tear! -Gwen Ramsay, Grade X., Garry Hall. GRADE X. COOKING

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Page Nineteen VOX FLUMINIS to them of writing jointly a volume of poetry. Coleridge's endeavours were to be directed to persons and characters supernatural. Mr. Words- worth, oin the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday . . . and to awaken the mind's attention to the lethargy of custom and direct it to the loveli-ness and won- ders of the world before usf' Qnly three or four of the poems in the volume are Coleridge's. The Lyrical Ballads were received by many critics with a storm of opposition. They were charged with being prosaic, childish, unpoetic, and even stupiidg and merciless imitations were made of them. But that they were not' merely childish a-nd stupid, as some thought, was proved when they were still causing controversy twenty years afterwards, and when more and more people were reading and appreciating them. Coleridge said that the omission of less than a hundred lines would have precluded nine-tenths of the criticism. However this may be, Wordsworth has steadily risen in favour and has even been ranked as our third greatest poet. In submitting to print the second volume of Lyrical Ballads in 1800, W'ordsworth, partly on the advice of friends, decided to state some of his poetical views and his reasons for writing in the manner and on the subjects as he did. To this end he wrote a long Preface, which ex- pressed his philosophy of poetry. The.principal objectf' he says, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or descri-be them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used 'by meng and at the same time to throw over them a certain colouring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind iin an unusual way. He chose to write about common people and nature, because it is here that the elemental passions are at their simplest, and no artificiality. He used simple langu- age because if the Poet thinks and feels in the spirit of the passions of men, how ca-n his language differ in any material degree from that of all other men who feel vividly and see clearly? In his imaginative faculty he so far succeeded, that Coleridge says concerning it, he stands nearest to Shakespeare and Milton, and yet in a kind perfectly un-borrowed and his own. The gist of his poetic creed was that what sounds bombastic and affected in prose does so no less in poetry. VV hen we turn to the 'ballads themselves we F1-nd his views carefully and thoughtfully embodied. The poems all concern rustic happenings or scenes. They are all written with an austere purity of language. VVordsworth's minute and faithful description aind simple language give his work much both of its strength and its weakness. Oftentimes it becomes prosy. Coleridge cites lines in the Brothers which are the baldest prose, merely set down in metrical form. It is this same fault which makes for inconstancy in his style. and sudden descendings from the sublime to the everyday. This fault shows itself in still another form. where he uses thoughts and images too great for the subject. j