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ALAN HERTZ Exile in Eden: William Barnes's Lyrics of Romantic Encounter Despiteitsoverwhelminglushness, a poembyWilliam Barnesoftenseems strangely artificial, a kind of verbal topiary. Isolated in an anthology, its self-consciously limited vocabulary and rich, stylized imagery can appear merely an eccentric and unproductive impoverishment of the medium. Seen in the proper context, however, it stands revealed as part of a large and interesting literary enterprise. The poems I call lyrics of romantic encounter-those about unexpected meetings with irresistible womenundergo just such a transformation. On their own, they seem no more than highly wrought curiosities, but the appearance of superficiality is misleading, for beneath the pruned and polished surface lie deep emotion and profound thought. These lyrics are easy to undervalue because so much of their force derives from imagery and techniques of versification established and endowed with significance elsewhere in Barnes's works. Thus, like his other poems, they are flowers best appreciated in their peculiar native habitat, and I begin with an analysis of the soil in which they naturally grow.' Barnes is a poet with a method: he uses a set repertoire of images and prosodic techniques to present the Blackmore Vale (the part of Dorset where he was born) as stable, prosperous, and uniquely suited to human settlement. His best-known poem, 'My Orcha'd in Linden Lea," exemplifies this strategy: '!thin the woodlands, flow'ry gleiided, By the woak tree's mossy moot, The sheenen grass-bleiides, timber-sheaded, Now do quiver under voot; An' birds do whissle over head, An' water's bubblen in its bed, An' there vor me the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. When leaves that leiitely wer a-springen Now do feade 'ithin the copse, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 56, NUMBER 2 , WINTER J986/7 WILLIAM BARNES 309 An' paInted birds do hush their zingen Up upon the timber's tops; An' brown-leav'd fruit's a-tumen red, In cloudless zunsheen, over head, Wi' fruit vor me, the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. Let other yo'k meake money vaster In the aIr 0' dark-room'd towns, I don't dread a peevish measter, Though noo man do heed my frowns; I be free to goo abrode, Or teake agean my homeward road To where, vor me, the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. Uthough Barnes often varies the rhyme scheme, he uses this stanza form an iambic tetrameter octet divided in half and ending in a refrain) more ,ften than any other. In the first four lines, he characteristically employs omplex sound patterns as the aural counterpart of his lush imagery. Just .s lines 2 - 4elaborate the image of shady meadows presented in line 1, so he elongated vowels and multiple consonants of 'woodlands, flow'ry ;leaded' are transformed and echoed in the words that follow: 'woak ree's mossy moot' and'grass-bleades, timber-sheaded: Even the caesura 1 line 1 is duplicated in line 3. The reader picks his way through this ltensely harmonious verse just as the speaker moves attentively and )vingly through the woods. This movement, however lingering, is not purposeless. In the second uatrain the pace quickens as the speaker nears his goal and the stanza pproaches its refrain. The echoes and harmonies persist: the interweaving f band w in lines 5-6; the internal rhyme in line 7. But the diphthongs isappear, the repeated conjunctions give the reader no pause, and the bsence of a verb or end-stop in line 7 forces him to hurry on. The /nghannedd of the refrain is a suitable climax to this crescendo of )nsonance. The sound patterns make the orchard strangely magnetic: Ie closer it is, the more reader and narrator alike feel- or rather hear- its ower. To summarize, the exquisite craftsmanship of this stanza has two mctions: to emphasize the peace and prosperityof the Vale; and to make Ie orchard the pole to which its owner and his audience are irresistibly rawn. The imagery of these lines is as carefully orchestrated as their ~rsification, but its function can only be fully understood by reference to her poems. Shade, the...

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