The Vaudois
The Vaudois - form Summary
A Sonnet as Witness
Wordsworth uses the sonnet form to condense a historical meditation into a tightly argued image: a speaker asks who the Vaudois were, then answers by sketching their alpine refuges and austere sustenance. The poem’s fourteen-line structure forces economy of detail and a single moral focus—religious fidelity under persecution—while its concluding couplet frames mountain climate as divine protection, merging landscape and providence in compressed relief.
Read Complete AnalysesBUT whence came they who for the Saviour Lord Have long borne witness as the Scriptures teach?-- Ages ere Valdo raised his voice to preach In Gallic ears the unadulterate Word, Their fugitive Progenitors explored Subalpine vales, in quest of safe retreats Where that pure Church survives, though summer heats Open a passage to the Romish sword, Far as it dares to follow. Herbs self-sown, And fruitage gathered from the chestnut wood, Nourish the sufferers then; and mists, that brood O'er chasms with new-fallen obstacles bestrown, Protect them; and the eternal snow that daunts Aliens, is God's good winter for their haunts.
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