The River Wye
This is, after all, where the poem takes place: on the banks of the river Wye, looking out across the river valley. The specific location is important, because the poem is about the speaker's chang...
Eyes and Vision
The poem is mostly about how the speaker is able to compare what he sees with his eyes to the memory of the scene he's been carrying around in his mind's eye (yes, we just used a metaphor!). The li...
Out of his Senses
Vision (and hearing, to a lesser degree) is obviously important in this poem. But what about when the speaker is so overwhelmed that his senses get all mixed up or even seem to leave him?Lines 43-5...
Unripe Fruit
We know what time of year the poem takes place from the title. It's mid July. It makes sense, then, that the fruit on the orchard trees won't be ripe yet. So why bring them up? "Unripe fruit" isn't...
The Hermit
The hermit only appears one time in the poem, at the end of the first stanza. A hermit is a person who secludes himself from the world and lives alone, usually for religious reasons. We don't even...