“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Introduction

• The Prelude is a book-length autobiographical poem by William Wordsworth. It focuses on Wordsworth's spiritual development, which is often spurred on in the poem by the surrounding natural environment. In this early passage from The Prelude, the speaker recalls a night when he, as a young boy, steals a boat and rows out into the middle of a lake. Eventually, the boy becomes scared of a huge mountain and rows back to shore. The image of the mountain haunts him from then on, planting the seeds for a more complex relationship with nature.

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“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Summary

• One summer night (guided by nature) I came upon a boat that was tied to a willow tree in a small, rocky bay. This was where it was usually kept. Immediately I untied the boat's chain, got in and pushed off into the lake. It was a sneaky act that gave me a mix of pleasure and worry. Mountain echoes, like a voice, accompanied the movement of my boat. My oars left little circular ripples on either side of the boat, which were shining lazily in the moonlight until they all dissolved in the boat's wake into one long path of shining water. Now I was like someone who is proud of how good he is at rowing. In order to row in a straight line to my destination, I locked my gaze on a certain jagged mountain peak, the farthest point on the horizon. Above the peak were only stars and gray sky. My boat was an elf's boat. I vigorously lowered my oars into the silent lake, and as I lifted with each rowing motion, my boat pushed forward through the water like a swan. Then, from behind that jagged mountain peak (which, up until now, had been the highest point on the horizon) an even bigger peak, black and giant, appeared. As if it were a living, thinking being, this second mountain seemed to lift its head. I rowed and rowed. The mountain kept getting bigger and bigger, a scary shape that rose above me and blocked out the stars. It still seemed to me to be alive, to have its own motives and way of moving, just like a living creature. It seemed to pursue me. I was trembling with fright and so my oars began to shake as well. I turned around and rowed back through the noiseless water to the boat's dock, the willow tree. I left the boat docked there, and then walked back home through the fields in a somber and serious mood. After this experience, for many days, my thoughts were occupied by a dark, mysterious intuition that there were forms of existence that I knew nothing about. My thoughts were covered in a kind of darkness; you could call it solitude or empty abandonment. No recognizable shapes remained in my mind, no nice images of trees, sea, or sky. I couldn't picture the greens of fields. Instead, giant, powerful shapes—that were not alive in the same way that people are alive—moved slowly in my mind during the day. At night, these shapes gave me troubling dreams.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Themes

• 

  The Magic of Childhood

  The Prelude is a long autobiographical poem in which William Wordsworth depicts his own spiritual and poetic development. In this excerpt, Wordsworth recounts an episode from his childhood, when he stole a small boat and rowed into the middle of a lake at night. The speaker (who is usually identified with Wordsworth himself) remembers this adventure vividly, capturing the magic and wide-eyed intensity of childhood. This passage shows how children find such magic in the ordinary objects of the world.

  For the speaker, childhood is magical in that it’s full of beauty and terror that only children can perceive. This combination of feelings is captured by the phrase “troubled pleasure.”

  At first, this phrase seems to refer to the act of stealing the “little boat.” Not only is the speaker stealing something, but he’s probably not even supposed to be outside at this hour. Yet this feeling of breaking a whole bunch of rules only adds to the speaker’s excitement—a kind of excitement particularly associated with youth. “[T]roubled pleasure,” then, perfectly describes the thrill that a young child would feel sneaking out at night to row a stolen boat beneath the stars.

  As the poem progresses, though, “troubled pleasure” takes on additional meanings. It summarizes the speaker’s openness to the “spectacle” of the natural world, which is full of beauty and foreboding mystery. And as a child, the speaker is able to see beautiful and terrifying magic in ordinary objects.

  The very act of rowing a boat is a spectacle infused with wonder, and the speaker remembers this experience almost as if it were a fairy tale. The speaker describes the “little boat” as an “elfin pinnace” (i.e., an elf’s boat), and this phrase suggests how magical the moment feels. It’s as if the speaker has been transported into a fairy tale, yet this isn’t fantasy or make-believe. Instead, an object in the real world (the little boat) has revealed its own inner magic, or beauty, to the speaker, and the speaker believes in this magic with the wide-eyed acceptance of a child.

  The speaker also finds magic in the surrounding environment. The boat creates “Small circles glittering idly in the moon, / Until they melted all into one track / Of sparkling light.” It’s the kind of scene one might imagine in a tale of King Arthur, an “elfin” boat ride over magical water. At the same time, though, this memory is rooted in the physical imagery of the scene. Again, then, the child’s perceptiveness allows him to perceive the magic of the world around him.

  In the second half of this excerpt, however, a mountain peak seems to chase the speaker (“Strode after me”). The scene has quickly changed from one of childlike wonder to childlike terror. The boy’s active imagination has left him open to such experience—the scary side of the magic of childhood.

  Such an experience of magic and terror, the poem implies, is a particular quality of youth. As a child, sneaking out at night to paddle a boat into the middle of a lake becomes a huge adventure. The boat, the lake, and the mountain seem filled with magic, and the vividness of this memory testifies to how this experience has stuck with the speaker long into adulthood. As this excerpt progresses, then, it captures the ways in which children are especially open to the beauty, adventure, and terror of the ordinary world.

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• 

  Nature Vs. Human Understanding

  One of topics Wordsworth often focuses on in his poetry is the relationship between the mind and the natural world. In fact, The Prelude as a whole was supposed to serve as an introduction to a longer philosophical poem about this relationship. This excerpt, which comes early in the speaker’s journey, suggests that the natural world exceeds human understanding. As nature reveals itself to be a living, breathing entity separate from the speaker, the speaker is filled with fear and awe, discovering an attitude of humility in the face of nature’s magnificence.

  At the beginning of this excerpt, the speaker acts as if he is a part of nature. He personifies nature as a woman that teaches young minds, providing them with experiences that are sometimes gentle and sometimes difficult. By personifying nature in this way, the poem suggests nature is a kind of maternal figure. The speaker, then, is like nature’s son. He’s intimately bound with the natural world in a gentle, familial way. As the speaker venture outs onto the lake, he feels even more like part of the landscape: his boat “heav[es] through the water like a swan.” That is, rather than feeling like an intrusion on this natural scenery, the speaker feels like a swan—like an animal that belongs in this environment.

  In the second stanza of this excerpt, however, the living forms of nature begin to scare the speaker. They are vast, incomprehensible, and seem to pursue the speaker. Nature is alive, powerful, even terrifying. The speaker now starts to see himself as separate from nature. This experience centers around a mountain, which is described as a giant beast that “Upreared its head.” At first, the speaker rows towards the mountain as if it’s any other animal the speaker might play with. He views himself as an equal to the mountain, or perhaps even thinks he has mastery over it.

  Yet as the speaker approaches the mountain, it becomes a “grim shape.” Rather than being friendly, the mountain seems to have a “purpose of its own.” Not only is it alive, but it has thoughts and goals unknown to the speaker. In fact, the mountain now seems to be chasing the speaker! With “measured motion like a living thing, / [The mountain] Strode after me.” The speaker gets scared, rows away, and walks home “in grave and serious mood.” The mountain has gone from seeming familiar to being frightening and alien. This reaction suggests that the speaker has reached the limits of his relationship with nature. Rather than feeling like a part of it, he is scared of it.

  At the end of this excerpt, the speaker reevaluates what he thought he knew about nature. Realizing that nature exceeds his knowledge, the speaker seems to adopt an attitude of greater humility. The image of the mountain troubles the speaker. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes how little he knows about the mountain. It seems that “No familiar shapes / Remained.” The mountain is totally beyond his grasp. Moreover, just as the mountain chased the speaker across the lake, it has even followed him into his own mind, where it becomes a “trouble to my dreams.” The speaker no longer feels like a seamless part of nature. Rather, he is chased and haunted by it.

  This suggests that in place of confidence, the speaker needs humility. While he starts out thinking he is one with nature and can go anywhere with ease, ultimately he learns that nature is an independent entity that exceeds his understanding. This leads him to have a more complex and uncertain relationship with nature.

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• 

  Solitude and Spiritual Insight

  Wordsworth was interested in how solitude allows people to form a spiritual understanding of their existence. In this excerpt from The Prelude, solitude in the natural world has a profound spiritual effect on the speaker, leading him to discover the solitude of his own mind.

  In his mind, he has a vision of “huge and mighty forms.” Although the young speaker can’t fully articulate the meaning of these mysterious forms, they can be interpreted as glimpses of the divine, something like God or a part of God. It is solitude, first in nature and then within his own mind, that leads the speaker to this spiritual vision.

  The speaker’s journey towards spiritual insight begins with solitude in nature, when he rows out over a moonlit lake. This solitude allows the speaker to be receptive to images and impressions that eventually inspire a spiritual vision. The absence of people leaves the speaker free to absorb the sights of nature without distraction.

  As a result, the speaker has the powerful impression that a “huge peak” is chasing him. This is the kind of experience someone has when there’s no one else around and the imagination can run wild. The peak will come to form the crux of the speaker’s vision, and this initial solitude thus creates the conditions that eventually lead the speaker to an important spiritual experience.

  The image of the mountain sticks with the speaker. In the solitude of his own mind, the speaker keeps going over this image until it becomes abstract and unfamiliar—less like an actual mountain and more like some kind of spirit. After this adventure, the speaker describes how “o’er my thoughts / There hung a darkness, call it solitude.” This is a new kind of “solitude,” then—that of his own mind. The speaker isn’t alone with nature, but alone with himself. In this darkness, the speaker starts to have new perceptions.

  More specifically, the speaker’s memory of the peak transforms into strange new images. Eventually, “No familiar shapes / Remained.” The speaker has abstracted from his own experience. In memory, the mountain has taken on new forms that can only be perceived by the speaker’s mind. Soon, they will have a spiritual impact on the speaker.

  These abstracted forms begin to suggest something like divinity—a glimpse of God that becomes visible only to the solitary mind. The speaker perceives “huge and mighty forms, that do not live / Like living men.”

  What exactly are these forms? That is the mystery that haunts the speaker. They seem to suggest a mysterious entity or entities. Such forms can be interpreted as representing the divine or spiritual nature of the world. It's as if seeing a mountain has led the speaker to see mountainous spirits in his mind. Or, put differently, it’s as if a portion of God becomes visible to the speaker as a “mighty form” similar to a mountain peak.

  That said, this passage doesn’t necessarily refer to the God of any religion. Rather, the concept of God is helpful for getting a handle on the strange experience the speaker is having. Ultimately, the passage is about what it’s like to have a spiritual insight in solitude—rather than attaching any definite interpretation to that insight. It’s about a glimpse of some mysterious, abstract, and perhaps fundamental truth of the world, gained through solitary activities and intense personal contemplation.

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

• Lines 1-3

  One summer evening (led by her) I found
  A little boat tied to a willow tree
  Within a rocky cove, its usual home.

  Because this poem is just one part of a much longer work, it's worth delving into some context before breaking down these lines. Wordsworth began writing The Prelude in the 1790s and continued to tweak it for the rest of his life. In fact, although Wordsworth had finished the poem by the early 1800s, he continued to refine his language for another 50 years. The version used here is from his last known draft in the 1850s, generally considered to be his most polished version. The Prelude depicts Wordsworth's spiritual development from childhood into adulthood, as well as his growth as a poet.

  The passage used in this guide is a single verse paragraph from Book 1 (i.e., Chapter 1) of the 14-book poem. In this book, Wordsworth introduces the poem and then narrates experiences from his early childhood. Here, the speaker (usually interpreted as Wordsworth himself) describes stealing a boat at night, an experience which then leads him to early spiritual insights.

  This passage immediately begins by referencing nature as "her." In the verse paragraph preceding this one, the speaker personified nature as a kind of maternal figure that instructs the speaker. In fact, throughout The Prelude, solitary experiences in nature provide the speaker with valuable insights into his own mind and imagination. These insights also lead the speaker to a greater spiritual understanding of existence, where the human imagination and nature are intertwined. This passage, then, provides an early glimpse into this understanding, both for the young Wordsworth and for the reader.

  The speaker is "led" by nature one night to "A little boat tied to a willow tree." The speaker literally means that, following his instincts and the natural landscape, he discovers where the boat is hidden. But by saying that nature "led" him there, he emphasizes how learning from nature involves a certain degree of passivity and openness. He has to treat the natural environment like a person that is communicating with him—that will help him uncover its secrets. Note that a "cove" is a small, secluded inlet. Here, the boat is tied to a willow tree as it floats in the shallows of a lake.

  The form and meter of The Prelude is very important. It is written in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter (meaning there are five feet per line, each of which follows a da-DUM rhythm). The first line is a good example:

  One sum- | mer eve- | ning (led | by her) | I found

  Furthermore, as the first two lines exemplify, the poem is heavily enjambed. Wordsworth modeled this language after John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, written in the 1650s-1660s, which employs blank verse, long and intricate sentences as well as heavy enjambment.

  The relationship between Wordsworth's and Milton's language is covered more fully in the Form section of this guide, but one of the most important elements of this relationship is how Wordsworth puts himself at the center of his poem. Whereas Milton wrote about characters from a religious story (the fall of Satan and the story of Adam and Eve), Wordsworth writes about himself. The pronoun "I" is always present, and it's always Wordsworth speaking. The images are all drawn from his own life. As Wordsworth sets the scene, then, he is reconstructing a memory of a place and event that is supposed to have really happened to him.

• Lines 4-7

  Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
  Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
  And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
  Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

  

  

• Lines 8-11

  Leaving behind her still, on either side,
  Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
  Until they melted all into one track
  Of sparkling light.

  

  

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• Lines 11-16

  But now, like one who rows,
  Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
  With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
  Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
  The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
  Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
  I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
  Went heaving through the water like a swan;

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  When, from behind that craggy steep till then
  The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
  As if with voluntary power instinct,
  Upreared its head.

  

  

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• Lines 24-29

  I struck and struck again,
  And growing still in stature the grim shape
  Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
  For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
  And measured motion like a living thing,
  Strode after me.

  

  

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• Lines 29-34

  With trembling oars I turned,
  And through the silent water stole my way
  Back to the covert of the willow tree;
  There in her mooring-place I left my bark,—
  And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
  And serious mood;

  

  

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• Lines 34-39

  but after I had seen
  That spectacle, for many days, my brain
  Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
  Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
  There hung a darkness, call it solitude
  Or blank desertion.

  

  

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• Lines 39-44

  No familiar shapes
  Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
  Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
  But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
  Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
  By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

  

  

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“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Symbols

• 

  The Boat

  The speaker's "little boat" symbolizes his innocent, magical, and naive attitude towards nature. This attitude, which is at once childlike and complex, unfolds throughout lines 1-31. The depiction of the boat as a symbol likewise evolves.

  At the beginning of this passage, the boat is like a part of the natural landscape. The image of "A little boat tied to a willow tree / Within a rocky cove" is picturesque, the kind of thing that might be in a landscape painting or an illustration in a children's book. The pleasant unity of boat and landscape reflects the speaker's own idea of his relationship with nature. He thinks of himself as part of nature, or—perhaps more accurately—of nature as part of himself. As Wordsworth once said of his childhood:

  I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature.

  That is, the young Wordsworth thought of nature as a part of his own mind ("my own immaterial nature"). The boat, then, represents Wordsworth seamless link with natural world.

  As evidence of this seamlessness, the move moves through the water silently, leaving beautiful ripples, "Small circles glittering idly in the moon." So great is this beauty, that Wordsworth thinks of his boat as magical, "an elfin pinnace"—that is, an elf's boat. This moment captures the boy's ability to find magic in an ordinary object (the boat). As a symbol, then, the boat represents the young speaker's ability to see the magic—and later, something like divinity or spiritual essences—in the natural world.

  After becoming "an elfin pinnace" the boat makes its final metaphorical transformation into "a swan." Like a swan, the boat moves effortlessly through the water. And, like a swan—like any animal—the boat seems to be part of the natural environment. Again, this symbolizes the speaker's feeling of oneness with the world around him.

  After the speaker gets frightened by the mountain peak, however, this symbolism changes. The boat's oars, which previously "dipped [...] into the silent lake" are now "trembling." The boat's effortless gliding has turned into shaking. The speaker rows back to shore and abandons his boat, walking home. Here, the "trembling oars" and act of leaving the boat symbolize the speaker's abandonment of his old attitude. After his experience with the mountain peak, he can no longer think of nature as he once did.

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• 

  The Mountain Peak

  The mountain peak symbolizes nature's living, breathing independence from the human mind—an independence that frightens the speaker. Part of the reason for this fright is that the mountain evokes the vastness of nature's independence. It suggests a sense of scale in which humans are dwarfed by "huge and mighty forms."

  The speaker's very first description of the peak captures a sense of its forbidding quality: "a huge peak, black and huge." The peak is aloof, ominous, vaguely threatening. This impression is further solidified when the speaker calls it a "grim shape," a description that foreshadows his later depiction of "huge and mighty forms." Furthermore, the peak seems alive, like it's an animal. It has "purpose of its own / And measured motion like a living thing." This captures the sense that the mountain has its own rich existence independent of the speaker.

  These impressions symbolize the speaker's new relationship with nature. Rather than feeling at one with the natural environment, the speaker feels separate from it—as separate as a puny human in a boat dwarfed by a millennia-old mountain peak.

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“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Personification

  The speaker begins the poem with an important instance of personification by calling nature "her." Here, nature—which refers to earth, sky, the organic environment, etc.—becomes a female figure. It even takes on maternal qualities. (This is not to be confused with later uses of "her," which personify the speaker's "little boat" traditionally.)

  This initial use of personification is based on the verse paragraph that comes before this passage in The Prelude. There, Wordsworth describes how nature keeps teaching him new lessons. By continuing to refer to nature in such a manner at the start of this passage, Wordsworth suggests that he's about to relate another lesson nature taught him.

  Additionally, the phrase "led by her" hints at the kind of relationship the younger speaker has with nature at the outset of his little adventure. Nature, personified as a woman that teaches the speaker lessons, is a mother figure. The speaker has a very intimate and trusting relationship with "her," just as if they were mother and son, members of the same family

  Taken out of personified terms: the speaker feels a close attachment to nature. He seems himself as part of the natural environment, continually following its slopes and trails ("led" by it) to discover new things about the world. As the narrative of this passage progresses, though, that relationship changes. Things stop feeling so cozy.

  The uses of "her" and "she" that follow refer to the speaker's boat, since boats and ships are traditionally referred to by female pronouns in English. This use also adds a level of grandeur to the boat, since such personification is usually reserved for larger vessels. In the young speaker's imagination, the boat is an "elfin pinnace," an elf's boat. Although to other eyes it might just be a humble rowboat, to the speaker it is imbued with magic.

  This continuation of female personification also suggests a connection between nature and the boat, which is supported by the depiction of the boat itself. For instance, the speaker compares the boat to a swan, hinting that it is just as much a part of nature as an animal. And the boat doesn't disturb the water so much as add to its beauty, creating "one track / Of sparkling light." These details suggest that the boat helps strengthen the speaker's connection to nature in the first half of the poem.

  The speaker also personifies "mountain echoes" by describing them as a "voice." Mountain echoes could be any noise that filters down from the mountains: wind, birdsong, rustling trees, tumbling rocks, flowing water, etc. By calling them a "voice," though, the speaker again conveys the feeling of intimacy he has with nature, as if the noises of the mountain are talking to him. Some readers might even interpret this moment as verging into the pathetic fallacy (attributing human traits to nonhuman things), which is covered as its own entry of this guide.

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• Pathetic Fallacy

  

  
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• Hypotaxis

  

  

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• Diacope

  

  

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• Polyptoton

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

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"Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)" Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Her
• Cove
• Straight
• Unloosed
• Stealth
• Troubled
• Idly
• Unswerving
• Craggy Ridge
• Utmost
• Elfin
• Pinnace
• Lustily
• Stroke
• Heaving
• Steep
• Bound
• Peak
• Voluntary power instinct
• Grim shape
• Measured motion
• Strode
• Stole
• Covert
• Mooring-place
• Bark
• Grave
• Spectacle
• Dim
• Undetermined
• Unknown Modes of Being
• Solitude
• Blank desertion
• Forms

• Nature, whom the speaker personified in the preceding verse paragraphs; he continues to do so here.

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

• Form

  This is a narrative poem (really, a section of a much longer poem) of 44 lines, but it has no traditional form. Instead, it's one long block of text. The lack of stanza breaks here remind the reader that this is a single, contained incident within a much larger work. Because there is no steady form here to guide readers, it's worth paying close attention to the way Wordsworth plays with language itself.

  The Prelude is written in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter (five feet in a da-DUM rhythm). We talk about the specifics of what this means in the Meter section of this guide. Here, let's take a beat to understand the broader formal legacy Wordsworth is tapping into.

  Wordsworth modeled his use of this form after John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, written in the 1650s-60s, about the Fall of Adam and Eve. Milton's use of blank verse for a long narrative poem was controversial at the time for its lack of rhyme, but it proved incredibly influential for later generations of poets. Milton's was in turn inspired by ancient poets like Homer and Virgil, who also didn't rhyme in their epics The Iliad and The Aeneid.

  Wordsworth's goal, however, was not to tell an ancient story of gods and heroes, but to describe the development of his own imagination through experiences in nature. As a result, he turns the language of these older poets inward, capturing the rhythms of his own thought and the expansiveness of his imagination. In doing so, he elevates such subjects to the level of an epic tale.

  The sentences in this poem reflect that goal as well. To tell his story, Milton borrowed many devices from Homer and Virgil, especially Virgil's long, complex Latin sentences. In English, this creates a device called hypotaxis, in which sentences are composed of many interlinked phrases. Wordsworth was heavily inspired by this kind of writing, and incorporates it into The Prelude. His lengthy, enjambed sentences are on display in lines 34-38:

  [...] but after I had seen
  That spectacle, for many days, my brain
  Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
  Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
  There hung a darkness [...]

  Here, each line pushes forward into the next, suggesting taut interconnection. But whereas Milton used language like this to suggest the vastness of the cosmos as powerful angels fought each other, Wordsworth uses it to summon the vastness of his own imagination. Again, tapping into this style is a way for Wordsworth to elevate his personal experiences. Wordsworth is taking Milton's sense of the epic and applying it to his own life.

• Meter

  The Prelude is written in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter (meaning each line has five iambs, poetic feet with a da-DUM rhythm). This meter has a strong effect on the overall sense of the poem's form, so it's discussed in that section of the guide as well. Here, let's zero in on some specific examples of Wordsworth's meter. He maintains expert control of stress throughout the poem, using it to work in tandem with the poem's content and syntax (its arrangement of words).

  The first line provides a good example of clean iambic pentameter:

  One sum- | mer eve- | ning (led | by her) | I found

  This starts the passage off with a straightforward example of the poem's meter. Such moments reassure the reader that Wordsworth remains in control of the poem throughout its long swaths of text—The Prelude is several hundred pages long, so if readers felt like the speaker was just blabbering away with no sense artistic engagement, they'd probably just stop reading!

  This initial line also establishes an interesting quality to Wordsworth's iambic pentameter: it's often paired with enjambments. In fact, even when the lines aren't strictly enjambed, they have the feeling of flowing into each other, as in lines 6-8:

  [...] nor | without | the voice
  Of moun- | tain-ech- | oes did | my boat | move on;
  Leaving | behind | her still,

  Line 7, which ends on a semi-colon, isn't technically enjambed, but the way that line 8 picks up with an immediate stressed syllable suggests there's little pause between the two lines. Instead, this initial stress seems to cling to the final stress of line 7.

  Notice also how the steady iambs of line 6 flow into line 7. One interesting quality of Wordsworth's writing in The Prelude is how the language can almost start to feel like rhythmic prose at certain points.

  In moments where the line breaks seems to dissolve, and meter and syntax conspire to create a unified flow of language, it can be easy to lose track of the fact that this is a poem made of individual lines, each with five beats. But that's part of what Wordsworth's after. He doesn't want his language to feel artificial, but like an authentic outpouring of his most beautiful thoughts. As such, it's actually part of his achievement that he's able to write in an iambic pentameter so controlled it almost disappears, that it folds into the natural movements of the language.

  This control doesn't mean that there are no variations in the meter, however. Sometimes, Wordsworth uses a trochee (DUM-da) instead of an iamb for the first syllable of a line, as in line 21:

  When, from | behind | that crag- | gy steep | till then

  This is a classic way to vary the meter. It creates an emphatic moment at the beginning of the line, conveying the speaker's surprise as the "huge peak" slowly reveals itself. At the same time, though, it allows the speaker to seamlessly transition back into iambic pentameter. This moment, then, allows for clear emphasis that fits into a steady rhythm overall. Moreover, it prevents the meter from becoming monotonous, from seeming artificial. Instead, such variations capture the feeling of a living, breathing language composed by a vibrant mind.

• Rhyme Scheme

  The Prelude is written in blank verse, meaning it doesn't rhyme. Having a clear, steady rhyme scheme would feel too structured and predictable for the poem, the form of which instead follows its speaker's wandering thoughts and experiences during this boat journey. In choosing a form that doesn't snap shut with the certainty of rhyme, Wordsworth allows his poem to instead sprawl out in enjambed, never-ending trains of thought. His poetry is based on authenticity, perception, and the rhythms of the mind, and the lack of rhyme reflects that.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Speaker

• The speaker of The Prelude is usually interpreted as Wordsworth himself, a reading licensed by the poem's full title: The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem. This title was given to the poem by Wordsworth's widow, Mary; nonetheless it clearly reflects Wordsworth's intentions. The poem tracks Wordsworth's spiritual development from birth to adulthood. He uses specific events from his life, as in the passage at hand. As such, the poem can be thought of as a poem-memoir hybrid.

  At the same time, the poem is meant to have universal applicability. Although the reader should understand the imagery here as depicting concrete things that Wordsworth really encountered—as the feelings to be ones he really felt—the reader is also meant to see them as representing the kinds of experiences anyone can have. Wordsworth's penchant for extracting spiritual lessons from these episodes, as happens at the end of this passage, stems from his belief that these lessons are universal. He believes that anyone open to the natural world and the drift of their own thoughts can have the mind of a poet, can see the world as he sees it.

  As such, the specificity of The Prelude is meant to open up to a universal understanding. The poet and speaker Wordsworth is meant to become the voice of a divine force that flows between humans and all natural things, a voice that has spoken to him through concrete experiences and profound emotions, both of which he now passes on to the reader.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Setting

• The poem takes place on a lake on a "summer evening." There are plenty of details to help readers get the lay of the land: the small boat is tied to a "willow tree" in a "rocky cove," or small bay. The moon is out, and the night is quiet. Eventually a huge mountain comes into view, startling the speaker. The final moments of the poem then move away from the lake and to the speaker's home—or, more specifically, into his mind, as he reflects on his experience on the water.

  The context of the poem fleshes out the setting further. This passage comes from Book 1 of The Prelude, which takes place in the Lake District in North West England, where Wordsworth grew up. The landscape of the Lakes District played an important role in Wordsworth's early childhood. Other passages from this book describe how Wordsworth roved the forests and mountains, learning from nature. The personification of nature here ("led by her"), in which nature becomes a maternal figure, captures this relationship.

  Additionally, Wordsworth's intimate connection to the landscape he grew up in means that "her," nature, can be read as specifically conjuring the Lakes District. In other words, his concept of nature had been informed since birth by the specific ecology he grew up in. For Wordsworth, nature in this sense is the Lakes District.

  Another important thing to note about Wordsworth's intimacy with nature is that often the setting basically becomes the story. Each observation of nature corresponds to some inner state in the speaker—in fact, this is one of the central beliefs of Romanticism. So, when Wordsworth describes the following...

  Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
  Until they melted all into one track
  Of sparkling light. [...]

  ...he's simultaneously describing his own awe at the beauty of the scene. He's even suggests that he too has "melted" into the scenery, that he feels at one with nature.

  Wordsworth later uses the image of the "huge peak" to illustrate this relationship in a more explicit manner. First, Wordsworth describes an event in the natural world: the mountain's "the grim shape / Towered up between me and the stars," creating a patch of pure darkness in the sky. Later on, that event creates a corresponding experience in his own mind, "a darkness" in which "huge and mighty forms [...] moved slowly." By using a delay between image and inner experience, and by emphasizing its profound effect on him, Wordsworth also captures the powerful intertwining of individual and setting that was so central to his poetry.

Literary and Historical Context of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

• Literary Context

  Wordsworth is generally considered as being among the first generation of English Romantic poets. Artists and writers associated with Romanticism valued individuality, introspection, and passionate emotion. While focusing on deeply interior experiences, however, they also depicted how those experience were connected to the natural environment. As a result, Romanticism presented two major innovations in European writing: detailed writing about people's inner states and lush descriptions of nature.

  Romanticism developed concurrently with the Enlightenment, which emphasized reason and skepticism. The Romantics rejected such aspects of the Enlightenment, while at the same time joining in the demand for liberty and a greater sense of individual capability. Romantics also tended to look back in history for older models, particularly the Renaissance poets William Shakespeare and John Milton.

  As noted throughout this guide, Wordsworth viewed The Prelude is an adaptation of the techniques Milton developed in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. But whereas Paradise Lost tells the story of the Fall of Satan and Adam and Eve, Wordsworth chose his own life as a subject. He turns the kind of language Milton used inward, capturing his thoughts and impressions during significant moments throughout his life—moments he calls "spots of time" later in The Prelude.

  Started in the 1790s, and continually revised until Wordsworth's death in 1850, The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem was called "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge" in its early phases. As this working title suggests, Wordsworth was heavily inspired by his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another major Romantic poet and intellectual. They planned to write a long philosophical poem called The Recluse that The Prelude would have been the prologue for; hence its ultimate title.

  Wordsworth never got more than a few books (i.e., chapters) into this second poem, however. Instead, he continued to tinker with The Prelude, which captures the headiness, adventure, and beauty of the most fervent and productive period of his career. This guide uses the text of Wordsworth's final version of the poem, from 1850.

  Historical Context

  Because Wordsworth lived into his 80s, his life straddles several historical periods. The Prelude covers the early periods of Wordsworth's life, and are distinctly linked to the times he grew up in. Wordsworth spent his childhood in the Lake District, where he received a good education and was enamored with the natural landscape. As a young man, he attended Cambridge University and travelled extensively through Europe. In fact, he was in France during the French Revolution.

  This marks the most important intellectual and historical commitment of Wordsworth's early career—to the Republican values of the Revolution (that is, to the establishment of a Republic based on equality among men). Wordsworth's emphasis on individuality can be seen as intertwined with his early sympathy for these values. His experiences in France are described in The Prelude.

  Eventually, though, the Rein of Terror caused Wordsworth to become disillusioned with the Revolution. As his career progressed, his friendship with Coleridge led him to more spiritual and philosophical interests. Yet the two friends became estranged in the 1810s and Wordsworth's work began to move in a more conservative direction. He was eventually appointed Poet Laureate and given a cushy job as a postmaster.

  Wordsworth's conservative turn coincides with the rise of Victorian Era morality. While the Victorians presided over an increased interest in societal reforms, scientific thinking, and the rise of the business class, they also promoted a strict moral code that involved strict gender roles, harsh discipline, and a surge of Evangelical Christianity. Wordsworth's later work, The Recluse, would become very popular during this time, as its themes more closely aligned with these values.

More “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Prelude in Full — The entire 1850 text of The Prelude. The passage in this guide is from Book 1.

  • The 1799 Version of Boat Stealing — This excerpt from the Poetry Foundation contains the same passage as it was originally written in 1799, before more than 50 years of editing.

  • The Lakes District — Information about the Lakes District, where Wordsworth grew up and where this passage takes place.

  • Intimations of Immortality — In this poem, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," Wordsworth reflects on spiritual intuitions he had as a child, and how growing up has affected those intuitions. Note its resonances with the Boat Stealing passage.

  • A Biography of Wordsworth — A detailed biography of Wordsworth, along with additional poems, from the Poetry Foundation.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

  • A Complaint

  • A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

  • Expostulation and Reply

  • It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

  • I Travelled Among Unknown Men

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

  • Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  • Lines Written in Early Spring

  • London, 1802

  • Mutability

  • My Heart Leaps Up

  • Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

  • Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

  • She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

  • She was a Phantom of Delight

  • Strange fits of passion have I known

  • Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind

  • The Solitary Reaper

  • The Tables Turned

  • The World Is Too Much With Us

  • Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

  • To a Snowdrop

  • We Are Seven