Wordsworth''s Revisionary Aesthetics
Theresa M. Kelley
Because the object of theft on this occasion is a bird in a nest, not a snare, the boy robs nature, but this is given less attention in the text than the risk and triumph of getting to the nest. These lines convey, as Christopher Ricks observes, "exultation, an extraordinary nonchalance of security." The passage is also remarkable for what D. G. Gillham calls its "hidden figures," figures that deliberately blur the distinction between the boy and features of the landscape.24 As Gillham explains, ...