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Kelvin O’Connell

Dr. Julia Carlson

Romantic Literature

3 April 2024

Memories As Lessons

It is difficult to pinpoint young Wordsworth’s opinions on nature in “The Two-Part

Prelude”, whether he respected, adored, or feared it. The young poet’s thoughts in truth

may be lost, as the child who is described in “The Prelude” did not write down his

thoughts for us to read, but, through memory, and through the imagination which

preserves it, we may glean from Wordsworth’s contemporary images of his youth how

nature affected him. There are descriptions manifold of natures beauty, like the beautiful

passage on ice skating in lines 150-185, where the “icy crag tinkled like iron”, or like the

“hidden bowers” of autumnal woods, or even the very opening lines dedicated to “the

fairest of all rivers”, the Derwent (I.164-5; ln.135; ln.2). There are, also, many instances

where nature horrified the young poet with “low breathings coming after me”, huge cliffs

which “strode after me”, and “an alien sound of melancholy” (ln.47; ln.114;lns.166-167).

These opposing feelings towards nature show how even though he is at a distance from

his past self, while viewing his previous life through memory, there is a bountiful

vividness which teaches and fulfills. These past remembrances are animated beyond

maybe even what they were originally, through that preserving smoke of imagination,

which revitalizes them with all the beauty and terror which they held. They are

transformed into spots of time which teach us, not just by reminding us what once was,

but by synthesizing with what is present.

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Early on in Wordsworth’s recounting of his childhood, he describes a scene

where he is, like “a fell destroyer”, disturbing birds nests, snaring the birds, destroying

eggs, and doing all of this because of a “resistless” temptation (ln.43). This temptation,

and the very acknowledgment that it is resistless, shows that there is some force within

the destroyer that shows he knows what he is doing is wrong, or at least that he

shouldn’t be doing it. There is an underlying guilt here. Wordsworth ends this with

saying that his views were “mean” and “inglorious”, but “the end was not ignoble”. This

demonstrates a process which pervades through this piece, where though his actions

as a child are so far distanced from where he is today, and he of course would not act

the same today, those actions are still an essential part of who he is, and through

reflection on those memories he learned from them, which is certainly not an ignoble

end.

The edifying purpose of memory is essential to this poem. We see this process

clearly in the bird-snaring passage, where the young Wordsworth does something

ignoble, but this fault is mended through his later memory. Even in his recounting of the

story we see this guilt playing out, where after he has stolen the birds due to some

impenetrable desire, he hears “low breathings coming after” him (ln.47). These sounds

are a manifestation of his guilt. He knows he has done wrong and these confused

sounds, which take impossible forms “of undistinguishable motion” “as silent as the turf

they trod”, must be conjurations of the mind, as they are truly of fantastical nature. They

come at a particularly vulnerable moment, and their forms are echoing the guilt of the

destroyer. The undistinguishable motions suggest the panicked escape he is

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committing, whereas the low breathings may be like his own, again, panicked breathing.

This illustrates a fear of himself, which is in many ways what guilt is.

The fear felt by the speaker is not exclusive to the memory of destroying the

habitat of birds, as while the young speaker and his fellows play “games confederate”,

“the distant hills/ Into the tumult sent an alien sound/ Of melancholy, not unnoticed”; we

are impressed with a very ambiguous aural vision (lns.157-158; lns.165-167). Many dim

suggestions arise from the opaque visage of the alien sounds of melancholy. The wind

could be the source, but also it could be the echoes of the children at play. This very

closely mimics the obscurity of the “low breathings” described in the previous

paragraph, and it seems Wordsworth is again depicting a guilt which manifests itself

through the surrounding nature.

The skating seems like a war. The children, “shod with steel”, hiss along the ice,

and play like the chase of some “hunted hare” (ln.156; ln.160). This shows the playing

as something which is at odds with nature. The children disregard its beauty by causing

strife between themselves and the ice, and by juxtaposing their roisterous gamboling

with the serenity of the nature around them. In this light, the precipices which “rang

aloud” sound like an alarm of war, and the tinkling of iron of the crags is a militaristic

image mirroring the children “shod with steel” (ln.163; ln.156).

The echoes of the war of play waged by these children are a source of the “alien

sound”, sounds which are vastly distant from nature's unperturbed state. Once this frolic

has ended, and the young Wordsworth has left the “tumultuous throng”, nature is

placated, and all the games are replaced with reposed observation from our speaker

(ln.172). “All was tranquil”, in his observations, and the alien sound was replaced with
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“her diurnal round” (ln.185; ln.182). The “diurnal round” and “alien sound” agree in that

they both suggest a canon or round-like sound. In the case of the “alien sound”, the

echoes are repeated like a round; the “diurnal round” pictures the tranquil music

perpetually permeating through all of the natural world (wind, birds, etc.).

These opposing sounds, which markedly shift the mood of their respective

passages, demonstrate the harmony gained through compliance and observance of

nature, and the discordance which can be a result of a disagreement with it. The playing

echoes back alien sounds: the distorted shouts of the children. Once that throng is

escaped, there is a silent observance of nature which reveals much greater beauty. This

is all observed in the present, and through the animating effect of memory, all of this is

learned. These are not the musings of that child Wordsworth who just escaped those

games, but of an older, wiser poet, who upon retrospectively observing these memories,

realizes the true beauty of what was around him.

Both the “alien sound” of line 166 and the “low breathings” of line 47 show a

specific guilt which the author felt. After stealing the birds caught in snares, and

destroying the crows’ eggs, the young destroyer described “the perilous ridge” from

which he hung, showing that though he held some power over some aspects of nature

(the birds), nature itself is still much more powerful than he is (ln.63). The ice skating

passage shows that the musing mind which observes nature gains much more than the

playing mind which disrespects and disregards it.

Though we know not what exactly the child at the time was feeling, we can see

through Wordsworth’s recounting of the scenes what he has learned from them. These

show the “fructifying virtue” which Wordsworth has credited “spots of time” as holding
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(ln.290; ln.288). Though these times have passed, and surely that resistless desire

which compelled him to steal the birds would no longer so persuasively enthrall him, we

can see how this experience changed him. There is such potent worth which these

seemingly trivial past experiences hold, and they hold this importance because of

memory. Memory which doesn't just recount what has happened, but explores what has

happened through the imagination.