Comparison of Two Poems: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud & The Preservation of Flowers. Gerard Crosbie

‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ and ‘The Preservation of Flowers’: two notable poems, two very different styles of writing. This essay will look at their contrasts and similarities, from relevant formal aspects, to the deeper meanings hidden between the lines. We will examine both writers use of rhyme scheme, sound patterning, word choice, figurative language and punctuation. It will also touch a little on the backgrounds of the writers themselves and their inspirations, with the intention of gaining a greater understanding of both texts.

The structure and form of both poems is evidently dissimilar. Wordsworth’s lyric contains four stanzas of six lines each, and follows a clear rhyme scheme: ABABCC; meaning that in each stanza, the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth and the stanza concludes with a rhyming couplet. Bird’s sixteen line narrative verse doesn't follow any formal rhyme scheme. She describes full rhyme as being “too strident” for her personal taste. Choosing instead: to use consonance and near rhymes. Despite this seemingly unconventional style with which the poem is written, it does follow an iambic pentameter, with every line containing five stressed syllables-

‘Be-tween the cab firm and the chick-en shop’1

-with the exception of line 13 which contains six:

‘Cer-tain cus-to-mers, he slips an ex-tra rose’13.

This is a very clever play on words, using the term ‘extra rose’ to mirror the extra syllable in the line, and patently demonstrates Bird’s astute understanding of structure and form. She explains - “There's a poetry joke in there too - each line has five stresses, but the 'extra rose' line has six stresses. An extra rose, an extra stress.”

(Personal Correspondence)

A comparis...

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...ied promptly and was very polite and informative.

Hello Gerry - I'm back home now, so have got a bit more time to chat. Thanks very much for your comments on my poem, I’m glad you enjoyed it. It's based on an actual flower stall near where I used to live in London which appeared overnight once. The bloke who ran the stall was a really excellent, chatty trader - he had a bit of patter for all the customers.

I wanted to write something about fleeting pleasures – a bunch of flowers, a conversation with a stranger - and the ambiguous impossibilities of trying to preserve them. Although a poem is of course a preservation of sorts. I don't like using full rhyme in my poems, it sounds too strident to me. I prefer near rhymes.

There's a poetry joke in there too - each line has five stresses, but the 'extra rose' line has six stresses. An extra rose, an extra stress.