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Works of William Wordsworth: The Thorn

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From: Monarch Notes
Date: 19630101
Author:Wordsworth, William

Wordsworth, William
Monarch Notes
01-01-1963
The Thorn

It would seem that the subject of the poem is the Thorn that the poet,
or, more accurately, that the narrator had seen - the old, grey, wretched,
forlorn thing that stands erect like a stone. But the subject is really Martha
Ray and her misery. The Thorn becomes a kind of metaphor for the woman who had
been courted by Stephen Hill and then abandoned by him after she became
pregnant with his child

The natural setting in the poem is the Thorn, located less than five
yards from the mountain path that goes

High on a mountain's highest ridge,

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