Childhood - Prelude and Mill on the Floss Flashcards
Was it for this /
was it for this / that one, the fairest of all rivers, loved / to blend his murmurs with my nurse’s song…”
“make ceaseless music through the night and day which… composed my thoughts to more than infant softness”
A naked
a naked savage in the thundershower
a huge cliff
a huge cliff, // as if with voluntary power instinct, // upreared its head. i struck and struck again, and, growing still in stature, the huge cliff… like a living thing strode after me”.
one evening (sure
one evening (surely i was lead by her) // I went alone into a shepards boat… it was an act of stealth // and troubled pleasure, nor without the voice // of mountain-echoes did my boat more on”.
“yet i rejoice
yet i rejoice… that i was reared // safe from an evil which in these days have laid // upon the children of the land”
he is fenced
he is fenced round… and fear itself, // natural or supernatural alike // unless it leaps upon him in a dream, ‘’ touches him not.
Old grandma
old grandma earth is grieved to find // the playthings which her love designed for him // unthought go: in their woodland beds the flowers// weep, and the riversides are all forlorn. —-volta—— “now this is hollow – ‘tis a life of lies… vanity, // that is his soul”.
oh, give us once again (about giants) ;)
oh give us once again the wishing-cap / of jack the giant killer, robin hood // and sabra… the child whose love is here, at least does reap // one precious gain - that he forgets himself.
A race
a race of real children, not too wise… but wanton, fresh, and bandied up and down by love and hate; … may books and nature be their only joy”
this is just like what maggie is like
after seeing dead man: “and yet no vulguar
and yet no vulgar fear…possessed me, for my inner eye had seen // such sights before among the shining streams // of fairyland, the forests of romance”.
he who in his youth
he who in his youth // a wanderer among the woods and fields // with living nature hath intimate (does) … receive enduring touches of deep joy // from the great nature that exists in works// of mighty poets”
so basically being a wandering child (like maggie) you can appreciate literature and academia more.
and in the frosty
And in the frosty deacons, when the sun // was set … i heeded not the summons. Happy time // it was indeed for all of us - to me // it was a time of rapture!
“rapture” a bliss, religious. He believed in Pantheism.
reaction, aftermath, of the boat stealing, mountain chasing scene
in my thoughts // there was a darkness - call it solitude // or blank desertion. no familiar shapes/// but huge and mighty forms that do not live // like living men moved slowly though my mind”
the boy is “deserted” by visual reassurance.