Extract from 'The Prelude' Flashcards
The speaker finds a little boat, giving a pretty, pastoral image
“A little boat tied to a willow tree / Within a rocky cave, its usual home” (2-3)
The speaker seems familiar with the rocky cave they find the boat in and confidently takes the boat out
“its usual home. / Straight I unloosed her chain” (3-4)
The speaker seems guilty about taking the boat out, and the mountain makes noise as he does so, hinting something is wrong
“It was an act of stealth / And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice / Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on” (5-7)
A beautiful, peaceful image is used to show the speaker rowing the boat under the moonlight
“Leaving behind her still, on either side, / Small circles glittering idly in the moon, / Until they melted all into one track / Of sparkling light” (8-11)
The speaker is confident and takes action to row the boat, suggesting he is in control
“But now, like one who rows, / Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point / With an unswerving line, I fixed my view / Upon the summit of a craggy ridge” (11-14)
The horizon is shown to be empty and seemingly calm, which contrasts with it later on
“The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above / Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky” (15-16)
The boat of the speaker is compared to a magical creature, making the journey seem other worldly
“She was an elfin pinnace” (17)
The mountain emerging seems to be ugly and scary, completely contrasting with what is shown previously
“When, from behind that craggy steep till then / The horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge, / As if with voluntary power instinct, / Upreared its head” (21 - 24)
The speaker, after the mountain appears, is scared and desperate to get away
“I struck and struck again, / And growing still in stature the grim shape / Towered up between me and the stars, and still” (24 - 26)
The mountain is calm and in control as it follows the speaker
“For so it seemed, with purpose of its own / And measured motion like a living thing, / Strode after me” (27 - 29)
The speaker retraces their steps after the mountain encounter, but they are scared and changed
“With trembling oars I turned, / And through the silent water stole my way / Back to the covert of the willow tree; / There in her mooring-place I left my bark” (29 - 32)
The reader is serious and disturbed as they go home
“And through the meadows homeward went, in grave / And serious mood” (33 - 34)
The speaker is left unsettled in their mind after the encounter with the mountain
“but after I had seen / That spectacle, for many days, my brain / Worked with a dim and undetermined sense / Of unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughts / There hung a darkness, call it solitude” (34 - 38)
At the end of the extract, the reader emphasises how their view of nature has changed
“No familiar shapes / Remained, no pleasant images of trees, / Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; / But huge and mighty forms, that do not live / Like living men, moved slowly through the mind / By day, and were a trouble to my dreams” (39 - 44)
