HAROLD BLOOM
only the most celebrated aspect of this recalcitrance. The tyranny of the
ear, which Wordsworth would never acknowledge, subtly imposes itself
by the compulsive repetition of the sound of universal waters far inland.
Deep in his journey to the interior, Wordsworth is obsessed by the
oceanic sense, the waters of judgment rushing all about his ears. It takes
a while for the constant reader of Wordsworth to be disheartened by the
excessive recurrence of this auricular image, but disheartened one can
become. Yet compulsion in Wordsworth
is
strength, whatever it may be
in the rest of us, and perhaps it is even, finally, an esthetic strength.
That ruin should come out of the more than natural, the apocalyptic
strength of hope and love, is the awful meaning of the tale of Margaret.
as harrowing a poem as any of us have read, a warning against the
destructive power of the imagination. All through the old man's discourse
that is the poem, the eye of the narrative pauses, with a racking slowness,
on the outward signs of Margaret's inner self-destruction, and in a way
that avoids the tyranny of the camera eyc. I quote, in progression, threc
such passages, torn from their context but forming a unit between them:
T he sun was sinking in the west and now
I sate with sad impatience. From within
Her solitary infant cried aloud!
The spot though fair seemed very desolate
The longer I remained more desolate.
And looking round I saw the corner stones
Till then unmarked, on either side the door
With dull red stains discoloured, and stuck o'er
With tufts and hairs of wool as if the sheep
That fe ed upon the commons thither came
As to a couching-place and rubbed their sides
Even at her threshold. The church-clock struck eight,
I turned and saw her distant a few steps.
Her fac e was pale and thin, her figure t oo
Was changed. A s she unlocked the door she said
CIt grieves me you have waited here so long
But in good truth I' ve wandered much of late.'
A step further on, and we are given this:
I turned towards the garden gate, and saw
More plainly still the poverty and grief
Were now come nearer to her; the earth was hard
With weeds defaced and knots of withered grass;
No ridges there appeared of clear black mould,
No winter greenness. Of her herbs and flowers
It seeme'd the better part were gnawed away
