“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Introduction

• Read the full text of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Summary

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Themes

• 

  The Magic of Childhood

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  Nature Vs. Human Understanding

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  Solitude and Spiritual Insight

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

• Lines 1-3

  One summer evening (led by her) I found
  A little boat tied to a willow tree
  Within a rocky cove, its usual home.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 4-7

  Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in
  Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth
  And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
  Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 8-11

  Leaving behind her still, on either side,
  Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
  Until they melted all into one track
  Of sparkling light.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 11-16

  But now, like one who rows,
  Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point
  With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
  Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
  The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
  Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 17-20

  She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
  I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
  Went heaving through the water like a swan;

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 21-24

  When, from behind that craggy steep till then
  The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,
  As if with voluntary power instinct,
  Upreared its head.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 24-29

  I struck and struck again,
  And growing still in stature the grim shape
  Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
  For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
  And measured motion like a living thing,
  Strode after me.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 29-34

  With trembling oars I turned,
  And through the silent water stole my way
  Back to the covert of the willow tree;
  There in her mooring-place I left my bark,—
  And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
  And serious mood;

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 34-39

  but after I had seen
  That spectacle, for many days, my brain
  Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
  Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
  There hung a darkness, call it solitude
  Or blank desertion.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• Lines 39-44

  No familiar shapes
  Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
  Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
  But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
  Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
  By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Symbols

• 

  The Boat

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.
• 

  The Mountain Peak

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Personification

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Pathetic Fallacy

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Hypotaxis

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Diacope

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Polyptoton

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Caesura

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Simile

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Assonance

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Consonance

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Imagery

  

  

  

  

  Unlock with LitCharts A⁺
  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Her
• Cove
• Straight
• Unloosed
• Stealth
• Troubled
• Idly
• Unswerving
• Craggy Ridge
• Utmost
• Elfin
• Pinnace
• Lustily
• Stroke
• Heaving
• Steep
• Bound
• Peak
• Voluntary power instinct
• Grim shape
• Measured motion
• Strode
• Stole
• Covert
• Mooring-place
• Bark
• Grave
• Spectacle
• Dim
• Undetermined
• Unknown Modes of Being
• Solitude
• Blank desertion
• Forms

• • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Speaker

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

More “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Prelude in Full — The entire 1850 text of The Prelude. The passage in this guide is from Book 1.

  • The 1799 Version of Boat Stealing — This excerpt from the Poetry Foundation contains the same passage as it was originally written in 1799, before more than 50 years of editing.

  • The Lakes District — Information about the Lakes District, where Wordsworth grew up and where this passage takes place.

  • Intimations of Immortality — In this poem, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," Wordsworth reflects on spiritual intuitions he had as a child, and how growing up has affected those intuitions. Note its resonances with the Boat Stealing passage.

  • A Biography of Wordsworth — A detailed biography of Wordsworth, along with additional poems, from the Poetry Foundation.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

  • A Complaint

  • A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

  • Expostulation and Reply

  • It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

  • I Travelled Among Unknown Men

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

  • Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  • Lines Written in Early Spring

  • London, 1802

  • Mutability

  • My Heart Leaps Up

  • Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

  • Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

  • She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

  • She was a Phantom of Delight

  • The Solitary Reaper

  • The Tables Turned

  • The World Is Too Much With Us

  • Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

  • To a Snowdrop

  • We Are Seven