or fragile the With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.


This next section comes right after Wordsworth mentions wreaths of smoke that come up from amongst the trees.  So it it is the wreaths of smoke he is comparing to the "uncertain notice, as might seem vagrant dwellers" or "of hermit's.  But because of the older style of English I am unsure of whether the uncertain notice is that of the vagrant dweller and the hermit to the intruder who found them or to the person who has stumbled upon them.  Or maybe it is both?  What is interesting is that Wordsworth is not directly describing that meeting but using it to describe the wreaths of smoke. But such a specific description of the wreaths of smoke expands the description of the landscape and in a sideways way, populates the poem with secondary characters - the vagrants and the hermit. I find this interesting as a literary tool or trick.  That I'm might make a comparison to one thing that helps describe something specific but also further expands the meaning or resonances of the text. Is there a name for that trick?

                                                   Once again I see             
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines             
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,             
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke             
sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

In these lines, I find Wordsworth describing the rural England I imagined in my youth when I was growing up on a dairy farm in southwestern Ontario: wild hedge rows, green pastures, cottages with smoke rising from their chimneys. 

When I was young, like maybe twelve or thirteen, I would try to imagine what England looked like.  More specifically, the rural England of Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights -- two books that I read during a summer library club. Two books I had no real understanding of what was going on and was shocked by their content when I reread them in university.  But there was something about the description of the landscape in the books that seemed so distant to my own existence.  I lived on a modern dairy farm and would often walk the property and sometimes, with my mind's eye, I would take the slight slope of the land and imagine it was a vast pasture somewhere in England.  England seemed much more romantic.

In the poem "Lines", Wordsworth is revisiting a place he had been five years before. In his opening description, he draws a picture while he is retracing his steps: the rolling rivers, the "lofty" cliffs, the cottages, the orchards and a "dark sycamore" tree where he takes a rest.

On my most recent read in getting ready for this blog, the "dark sycamore" jumped out of the text. Is that a symbol of something? I thought. I am missing some obvious cultural references? Like any good English teacher now living in the internet age, I did a google search to find out the following questions.  They are linked to my answers:

• What does a sycamore tree look like?  (Leafs on. From underneath)
• Is it native to England?  (Not strictly but grows everywhere.)
• Is it the same tree as the one in the Bible story with Zachheus? (Yes but the one in the Bible is probably a fig tree)
• What are other cultural references? (Lots of references but mostly after the poem was written: Sycamore Tree lyrics for Twin Peaks, The Tolpuddle Martyrs' tree, restorative justice program in New Zealand)