The Darkling Thrush: Line by Line Explanation First Stanza I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The poet paints a somber picture of the world. The mood feels lonely and meditative, the speaker watching as a silent bystander leaning upon the coppice gate — a gate that opens onto the woods. In his loneliness, the poet has personified Winter and Frost. Frost is described as ‘ specter – grey’ or ghost-like grey. The Winter’s dregs — the fallen snow and heavy fog — are making the twilight/ dusk ( the weakening eye of day) look desolate. So, as you can see, the Winter and the Frost are bleak company — they cannot arouse any sense of cheerfulness. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires Climbing plants, dead for winter, have left behind only their climbing stems or...
In B. Wordsworth by V. S. Naipaul we have the theme of admiration, identity, curiosity, friendship, control, freedom, uncertainty and coming of age. Narrated in the first person by an unnamed male the story is a memory piece and after reading the story the reader realises that Naipaul may be exploring the theme of admiration. If anything the narrator appears to admire Wordsworth though the reality may be that Wordsworth may not necessarily be who he says he is. He suggests that he is writing a poem that will be the greatest poem in the world however as the story progresses Wordsworth admits to the narrator that there is no poem. However it might also be significant that Wordsworth denies the story about the girl poet as the reality may be the girl poet may have been Wordsworth’s wife and the sudden loss of her is something that Wordsworth may have never overcome. Wordsworth was a young man at the time and had the future in front of him. However his life appears to have become one of ...