Poem of the Day: "There Was a Boy" by William Wordsworth, Poet of the Month

The Songs of Eretz Poem of the Day for June 9, 2014 is "There Was a Boy" by William Wordsworth, Poet of the Month.  Information about the Songs of Eretz Poet of the Month feature as well as a biographical essay about William Wordsworth may be found here:  http://www.eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2014/06/songs-of-eretz-poetry-review-poet-of.html.

There Was a Boy

Islands of Winander

William Wordsworth

There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs

And islands of Winander! many a time,

At evening, when the earliest stars began

To move along the edges of the hills,

Rising or setting, would he stand alone,

Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands

Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth

Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

That they might answer him.—And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,

Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals,

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud

Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause

Of silence such as baffled his best skill:

Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise

Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene

Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

         This boy was taken from his mates, and died

In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.

Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale

Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs

Upon a slope above the village-school;

And through that churchyard when my way has led

On summer-evenings, I believe that there

A long half-hour together I have stood

Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!

"There Was a Boy" is a narrative poem in blank verse divided into two stanzas, the first comprised of twenty-five lines, the second of only nine.  The story told is haunting, eery, somber, and sad--a poetic tale worthy of Edgar Allan Poe.

The first stanza introduces a boy who loved owls and the natural world that surrounded them.  Unseen, the boy would mimic their calls, and the owls would usually answer back.  Sometimes, however, the owls would be silent for a while, and in these silences the boy would become one with his natural surroundings, foreshadowing the state that his spirit would take after death.  His friends, the owls, themselves the heralds of death, allowed the boy to experience these feelings of peace.

The second stanza reveals that the boy did die at the age of eleven.  The narrator, presumably Wordsworth, would at times pass through the churchyard where the boy was buried.  The churchyard, being situated high upon a slope, must overlook the place where the boy once communed with the owls.  Looking out upon that view in silence, the poet realizes that he looks upon the place where the spirit, if not the body, of the boy lies.