A Whirl-blast from Behind the Hill
A Whirl-blast from Behind the Hill - meaning Summary
Nature Animated by Imagination
Wordsworth describes a sudden whirl-blast and hail that paradoxically produces stillness and a lively spectacle: dead leaves, sheltered beneath holly, appear to leap and dance. The poem turns a simple natural incident into a scene of imaginative animation, projecting music and sprite-like agency onto the landscape. It reflects Wordsworth’s characteristic habit of finding moral and imaginative life in ordinary nature.
Read Complete AnalysesA Whirl-Blast from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; Then--all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered round. Where leafless oaks towered high above, I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. From year to year the spacious floor With withered leaves is covered o'er, And all the year the bower is green. But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze--no breath of air-- Yet here, and there, and everywhere Along the floor, beneath the shade By those embowering hollies made, The leaves in myriads jump and spring, As if with pipes and music rare Some Robin Good-fellow were there, And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy.
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