Passage
One summer evening (led by her)1 I found
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
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;
Leaving behind her still, on either side,
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. 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; for above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnance;2 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;
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. 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. 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; 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. 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.
(1850)
1. Nature.
2. A boat.
Select an Answer
At the conclusion of the excerpt, the “huge peak” (line 22) seems to represent which of the following for the speaker?
An emblem of the beauty of the natural world
A figure of undefined and unsettling significance
An allegorical representation of sin itself
A curious natural phenomenon
A trivial figment of the speaker’s imagination
View Correct Answer
Choice (B) is correct. The poem tells the story of events that began when the speaker “found/A little boat” and decided to take it out on the water. Feeling exhilarated, the speaker suddenly saw “a huge peak, black and huge,” a “grim shape” that seemingly “Strode after” him or her. The speaker then guiltily turned “Back to the covert of the willow tree,” after which “for many days . . . o’er my thoughts /There hung a darkness.” The speaker is awed by the fact that nature seemed to see the theft of the boat and, in the form of the “huge peak,” threaten the speaker in some profound but unclear way (“my brain/Worked with a dim and undetermined sense/Of unknown modes of being”). The speaker knows that the experience with the peak was significant, and scary, but he or she is unable to trace all the implications of what happened. The speaker seems to feel that the peak is a figure of undefined and unsettling significance.