Can anybody explain the poem "the Green Linnet" by William Wordsworth? Im not understanding the poem. I also need to know the visual imagery for each line.

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Amanda

1Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
2Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
3With brightest sunshine round me spread
4 Of spring's unclouded weather,
5In this sequestered nook how sweet
6To sit upon my orchard-seat!
7And birds and flowers once more to greet,
8 My last year's friends together.

9One have I marked, the happiest guest
10In all this covert of the blest:
11Hail to Thee, far above the rest
12 In joy of voice and pinion!
13Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
14Presiding Spirit here to-day,
15Dost lead the revels of the May;
16 And this is thy dominion.

17While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
18Make all one band of paramours,
19Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
20 Art sole in thy employment:
21A Life, a Presence like the Air,
22Scattering thy gladness without care,
23Too blest with any one to pair;
24 Thyself thy own enjoyment.

25Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
26That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
27Behold him perched in ecstasies,
28 Yet seeming still to hover;
29There! where the flutter of his wings
30Upon his back and body flings
31Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
32 That cover him all over.

33My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
34A brother of the dancing leaves;
35Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
36 Pours forth his song in gushes;
37As if by that exulting strain
38He mocked and treated with disdain
39The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
40 While fluttering in the bushes.

Amanda, what Wordsworth has done is written an ode to a Bird, the Green Linnet. Just read the poem line by line and do your own analysis. He's just
saying that the linnet is the most welcome bird in the field.

Use a dictionary to look up any words which might confuse your understanding. Here's one online:

[www.onelook.com]


Les



Post Edited (05-17-04 11:17)

Looks like WW himself could have benefitted from a rhyming dictionary.