What feeling is here expressed?

Pshaw! the Black Knight is overthrown!

Contempt is here expressed. It is as if the speaker said: "The Black Knight is no fighter. He is easily overthrown."

Behold! the Black Knight is overthrown!

Now someone's attention is called to the fact, perhaps with some surprise.

2. Change the interjections in the sentences you wrote at your last lesson. See how many different feelings you can throw into the same sentence by using different interjections.

XIII. STUDYING A POET'S CHOICE OF WORDS

The following poem contains beautiful pictures described in beautiful words. The words fit; they express the pictures clearly, but you cannot see the pictures unless you understand the meaning of the words.

1. Using the Dictionary

Are you in doubt about the pronunciation or meaning of any of these words?

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Look up the doubtful ones in the dictionary. Read the lines in the poem in which these words occur, using in place of the poet's words the meanings you found in the dictionary. Which do you like better, the poet's words or the dictionary meanings? Why?

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye,

Which is the bliss of solitude:

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

First Stanza

2. Seeing Word Pictures

Can you imagine anything more lonely than a single cloud in the sky miles of space below it, miles of space above it, and miles of space on every side? How do you think the poet felt when he likened himself to such a cloud?

Have you ever watched a cloud wandering, floating, drifting, in the sky, moving slowly at the breath of the breeze, apparently without any destination? If you have, you will know just how aimless and thoughtless was the poet's wandering.

What is a "host"? How do you like the use of this word in the fourth line?

Which to you prefer, "golden daffodils" or "yellow daffodils"? Why?

See how the poet's selection of prepositions makes clear the picture in the last two lines.

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

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And the words "fluttering" and "dancing" make this picture beautiful as well as clear.

Second Stanza

Have you ever seen the "Milky Way"? There the stars are so close together that they make a broad pathway of light; they are "continuous." Is there anything in the shape and color of a daffodil to suggest a star?

To give an idea of the great number of daffodils the poet saw at a glance, he tells us he saw a "crowd," a "host," "ten thousand," that they were "continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way." Which one of these expressions gives the idea of the greatest number? Which tells how close together they grew?

What words in this stanza do you like the best? Why?

Third Stanza

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company!

Of course he could not. For the true poet, whether he writes poetry or only feels it, sees, not a row of wind-swept daffodils waving beside the wind-swept waters of the lake, but daffodils and waters alive, gay, laughing, and happy a "jocund company."

Read all the expressions in the poem that tell you that the poet looked on the daffodils as living, thinking, and feeling beings, his joyful companions.

Fourth Stanza

Did the golden daffodils give pleasure only while the poet was gazing at them?

Close your eyes and try to see, to recall, any one of the beautiful pictures of this poem. Can you see it clearly?

That is what the poet means by "that inward eye." He feels that if one's mind is well stored with beautiful pictures that he can recall with the "inward eye," he can amuse himself and be happy, even in solitude. Do you believe this is true? It is equally true of him whose mind is stored with beautiful thoughts.

Read the poem again and see if you do not have clearer pictures, if the words do not please you better, if the poem does not mean more to you.

XIV. PREPARING TO READ A POEM

1. Speaking Clearly and Distinctly

Read the groups of words below which occur in the poem last studied. Pronounce each word clearly and distinctly.