Stars and Skies

In the poems I have read to this point in Lyrical Ballads, the night sky has appeared several times. Wordsworth’s use of starlight in “Sonnet on Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress” reminded me of Coleridge’s use of the moon in “The Nightingale.” I’ll be honest in saying that I was hoping Wordsworth had written “The Nightingale” so I could compare his use of the theme over time, but that clearly didn’t work out.

In his poem Wordsworth writes, “As the soft star of dewy evening tells/What radiant fires were drown’d by day’s malignant pow’r/That only wait the darkness of the night/To chear the wand’ring wretch with hospitable light” (ll 11-14). As we discussed in class, Wordsworth possibly meant that the night sky, the stars and the moon, was a cheerful sight for a “wretch,” a sad or lonely person. I think there is definitely a sense of comfort and encouragement that Wordsworth describes in these lines. The use of “hospitable” makes me think of my grandparents; I may not always see them but for now, I know they are there and supporting me. This is what I think the starlight is for the wretch.

Coleridge’s use of the moon and nighttime is similar. When the speaker in “The Nightingale” takes his fussing son outside, the baby calms down. “And he beholds the moon, and hush’d at once/Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,” writes Coleridge (ll 102-103). The sight of the moon has a paralleled reaction to that of the wretch in Wordsworth poem. The speaker in Coleridge’s poem also mentions a plan to “make him[his son] Nature’s playmate” as though that action would be beneficial for the child (ll 97).

Both poems use the nighttime as a crutch for their characters. For the wretch, the starlight is something that they wait for throughout the day, something to be valued. For the speaker and his son, the moon and Nature are desirable, and console the characters.