I have always enjoyed reading Wordsworth’s vivid descriptions of the natural, but the tone of description in his poem, “The Thorn,” surprised me. I was expecting the nostalgic, healing view of nature, as expressed in works such as “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” but I was thrilled by the richness with which Wordsworth depicted the gloomy hill and its secrets. The music of the iambic lines aided in creating an eerie, haunting ballad. There is a brief respite from the gloom in stanza four, with the "fresh and lovely sight" of the hill of moss which is then described in beautiful detail. But the shift is stark in stanza five, when the mound is compared to an infant's grave. It is the mention of that grave that leads into the story element of the poem, which I thought was a great transition into the tale of the mourning woman in scarlet.
When I reached stanza eight, I was uncertain of why the text was in quotes when it was clearly not spoken by the only character mentioned thus far (the woman). At first, I thought it was Wordsworth asking himself the questions, but it became clear to me in stanza ten that the speaker is conversing with another unknown person. I imagine this to be Wordsworth directly addressing the readers and inviting them to join him on a journey through the mysterious history of the hill. But I would be curious to hear if anybody read that differently!
That would be a very good assumption, and in fact it was how many contemporary readers saw the dialogue. This is exactly why Wordsworth had to add a note to the second edition of the poem explaining that he was not the narrator. Here's what he says: "The character which I have here introduced speaking is sufficiently common. The Reader will perhaps have a general notion of it, if he has ever known a man, a Captain of a small trading vessel for example, who being past the middle age of life, had retired upon an annuity or small independent income to some village or country town of which he was not a native, or in which he had not been accustomed to live. Such men having little to do become credulous and talkative from indolence; and from the same cause, and other predisposing causes by which it is probable that such men may have been affected, they are prone to superstition. On which account it appeared to me proper to select a character like this to exhibit some of the general laws by which superstition acts upon the mind."
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