Short summary:
This
poem composed in 1804, is a portrait of his wife, Mary Hutchinson. He describes
her first as an ideally beautiful woman, then a pleasant companion and a housewife
and finally as an intellectual and moral being who is capable of guiding him.
Beginning with a distant view that offers an illusion, he closes up to a more
realistic and spiritual view of his wife.
Summary
Wordsworth
writes about his changing perspective on his wife, Mary Hutchinson, who he
describes as the Phantom to angel through the course of time from their first
meeting, deeply knowing each other and at last upto the marriage.
At
the first stanza, when the poet sees her she was like a dream girl for him, who
is more pleasant than anything to him. He thought that god had sent her only
for him. Her hair is very dark like twilight and her eyes were very beautiful
like stars at night. The god might make her very calmly and leisurely with the
best things found in the earth. He madly falls in love with her and her coca-cola
figure that disturbs him a lot.
In
the second stanza, it is realized that they are couple. He closely observed
that she is still his dream girl though she is his wife. She works in the house
very skillfully like an energetic young girl. He feels that sweet remembrances
and promises in her expression upto now though after marriage such matters
vanished permanently as promised in affairs time. He realizes that she is not
very good or perfect woman in the everyday life. She is an ordinary woman.
In
the third stanza, from the description of the poet we realize that she is old
now. He sees her calmly and finds she is like machine, who breathes even very
cautiously. All her actions are very reasonable as she has reached at the end
of life. Now she focuses on spiritual things rather than physical comforts, it
is the desires of senior citizens. Now she has firm reasons, mild desires,
skills to handle everything, foresight and highly tolerate woman, which shows
she experiences every ups and downs of the life. She becomes perfect woman as
she plans perfectly, to warn, to comfort and command him and he realizes that she
still an angel for him.
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