ABSTRACT
Transcribing her husband’s most famous poem, Mary Hutchinson Wordsworth picked up her pen one day and wrote ‘I wandered like a lonely…’ At this point she stopped and realized her mistake. If we read aloud these two lines:
and
we will realize why she paused. Does not the rst sound clumsy, awkward in the mouth and ear? In this small difference we hear the essential importance of rhythm to poetry. In these two versions the sentiment expressed is the same, the image used to convey it is the same, the number of syllables and even the placing of the beats is the same. Nonetheless, and not only because of familiarity, ‘I wandered like a lonely …’ sounds wrong. Analytically, the reason must be that like, though a vital part of speech, is too weak a word to bear a stress at this point in the impetus of the line. Putting it there delays the important idea of loneliness, especially as associated with the I , whereas the stresses placed in ‘I wandered lonely…’ enables the line to gather its meaning into the long and important syllable lone-so
that the line pivots upon it in both rhythm and meaning. But ‘I wandered like a lonely cloud’ simply sags.
