ABSTRACT
The thorn and 'The Idiot Boy' are one way of maintaining balance among attitudes disruptive of the personality at its base: compassion that can neither with decency be suppressed nor move with any hope of effectiveness to alter the situation that has called it into being. Wordsworth puts the antithesis of the usual Wordsworthian thesis with a compelling force and objectivity. After Lyrical Ballads he went to Germany. There he wrote what have since been called his Goslar poems. The passage in Prelude, Bk. IV on the old Soldier belongs to the period of 'Animal Tranquillity and Decay'. Goslar produces those parts of the Prelude concerning the Stolen Boat, Skating, the Boy who listened to the Owls, and 'Nutting'. All deal with organically shaping experiences that have occurred in Wordsworth's boyhood. 'The Thorn' and 'The Idiot Boy' show him achieving balance among conflicting feelings in one way, a way personal to himself.
