Wordsworth’s Grasmere

 

Wordsworth’s Grasmere

 

Though new poems appear before me through the text books every academic year as an English teacher to graduates, how can I forget the Daffodils, a poem written by Wordsworth. I lull the lines several times when I say to my students “William Wordsworth was a nature-poet, who wrote about flowers, plants, the entire blooming nature and other big topics.”

There is a story supporting the moment of creation of the lines of the poem. One afternoon Wordsworth was strolling through the ups and down of Grasmere, his village in the Lake District. While climbing down a hill, which was covered with rich green lavishness of grass, he could notice an uncountable quantity of daffodils oscillating upon the plants rooted to the hillside and valley.

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance

 

The sight of tens and thousands of daffodils stood in the mind of the poet unfading for several years. On lulling the same scene, somewhat after ten years in an afternoon he was seemed thoughtful on his coach, who scribbled the lines, for him creations came something as spouts to his mind in tranquillity.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

 

 

Another magnum opus, The Solitary Reaper by the same writer has also a background as follows:

 

In the same village of Grasmere, during another nature-walk through a wheat-field, he focused a girl cutting the grain, alone in her responsibility. She uses her sickle to cut the crop. The poet didn’t write any lines about this unforgettable image on the same day. After several days in a day of deep silence he scribbled the lines, describing the scene:

 

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

 

Let the Highland girl be allowed to reap, don’t distract her. What does this mean? Is it the afternoon scene from Grasmere? The poet writes: over there a Highland girl cuts the grain. During her tedious job she sings to herself, don’t disturb her, you may pass gently without annoying her.

During my visit to Grasmere in last May I was really taken to the nostalgia that the writer would have experienced, if he came once again to his small town where the burial place withstood for two centuries, unaffected by sunshine, drizzling, snow or herbs. Wordsworth is in his eternal sleep with his family members in the graveyard of St Oswald Church.

With a grief in mind, more than that with much immodesty I asked two different sight-seers, whether they knew how great Wordsworth was in British life and culture. Those visitors were from nearby township of Scotland. To my astonishment, they were seemed stringent in describing Wordsworth though they were trying to buy books on Wordsworth, from the collections exhibited on the desk placed inside St Oswald Church, where he and his kith and kin were members of the parish. The two visitors asked me why an Indian I, was speaking too much about the poet, for which my answer was enough to shut their mouths gently. “In India, Wordsworth is so dear. I am an English teacher there. I teach the Daffodils and the Solitary Reaper…”

Coming out of the church, before going to his house, just a mile away, I took a second survey for seeing the hill that showed an uncountable number of daffodils to the writer. “Daffodils will be blooming around only in the month of March of every year” A middle-aged husband and wife from Lake District told me and then I stopped my desire to see the real daffodils. ‘Can I see a Highland girl cutting grain and singing anywhere?’ was my next question to myself. I got a negative answer within a short time by myself:

It might be somewhat in 1802 Wordsworth had the direct sight of the Highland girl cutting and singing alone in the field using her sickle. This pastoral scene of early agrarian revolution of 18^th century has been sidelined for mechanization in farms and fields. In the farms and fields of present Grasmere earth-movers move along the field to cut and collect the grains. Instead of the song of the Highland girl, rattling or roaring of tractors or small trucks were heard. But, when coming out of the gate of St Oswald, tourists were asking one another:  “Where is the shop that makes and sells ginger bread?”  A small queue appeared in front of the shop.  “Did Wordsworth take ginger bread from the same shop?” I was disappointed to this question by someone. “No, this shop, Sarah Nelson’s Grasmere Gingerbread came only in 1854, i.e. four years after the death of Wordsworth.” I was much gratified with the explanation of a tourist.