1. Wordsworth says that he composed this poem while sitting by the side of a brook, enjoying a beautiful scene in Nature; imagine the scene that inspired this poem and describe your picture. What details for your picture does the poem give you?

2. What thought grieved the poet as he viewed the scene? How would you answer the question the poet asks in the last stanza? What is Nature's message to us, about which you read on page 516?

Library Reading. Bring to class and read a poem on spring from a recent magazine; or one of the following: "Spring Song," Carman; "Spring Song in the City," Buchanan; "A Vagabond Song," Carman; "Home Thoughts from Abroad," Browning.

There's a fir-wood here, and a dog-rose

there,

And a note of the mating dove;

And a glimpse, maybe, of the warm blue

sea,

40

And the warm white clouds above;
And warm to your breast in a tenderer nest
Your sweetheart's little glove.

There's not much better to win, my lad,
There's not much better to win!
You have lived, you have loved, you have
fought, you have proved

The worth of folly and sin;

So now come out of the city's rout,
Come out of the dust and the din.

Come out a bundle and stick is all
You'll need to carry along,

If your heart can carry a kindly word,
And your lips can carry a song;

45

50

You may leave the lave to the keep o' the grave,

If your lips can carry a song!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. What is there about a spring day that gives you an impulse to follow a road out to the sunshine and the air? Do you like this comparison of the choosing of a life work with the choosing of a road in springtime?

2. What is suggested by the fact that the road "rolls through the heart of May"? What is meant by "the year's green fire"? What details does the poet bring in to show how wholly delightful the road is? Explain line 36.

3. What effect has the repetition in the last stanza of the first lines of the poem? Notice the use of color words, such as "sapphire day," "warm blue sea," "long white road"; find others. 4. Do you enjoy a poem that has a hidden meaning underneath the surface? Name some other poem you have read that is similar in this respect.

There is an instinct in the human heart Which makes that all the fables it hath coined,

15

To justify the reign of its belief
And strengthen it by beauty's right divine,
Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift,
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful
hands,

Points surely to the hidden springs of truth.
For, as in Nature naught is made in vain, 20
But all things have within their hull of

use

A wisdom and a meaning which may speak Of spiritual secrets to the ear

25

Of spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heart
Hath fashioned for a solace to itself,
To make its inspirations suit its creed,
And from the niggard hands of falsehood

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. Judging from the first line of the poem, what is the nature of the story following the introduction? Why is ignorance represented as resting upon "slothful down"? What does the poet say of each form of worship adopted by men? How much of truth does he say is shown to the minds of all races?

2. What poems have you studied in which something in Nature brings home a great truth -in which trees or flowers direct the thoughts to higher things?

3. What does the first act of Rhocus tell you as to the kind of young man he was? Describe what he saw as he turned to answer the voice. Why was his wish a natural one? Read aloud the lines that tell of Rhocus's great happiness.

4. What does the striking of the bee tell you about Rhoecus? How is his apparent for