When Philoctetes in the Lemnian isle
Like a form sculptured on a monument
Lay couched; on him or his dread bow unbent
Some wild Bird oft might settle and beguile
The rigid features of a transient smile,
Disperse the tear, or to the sigh give vent,
Slackening the pains of ruthless banishment
From his loved home, and from heroic toil.
And trust that spiritual Creatures round us move,
Griefs to allay which Reason cannot heal;
Yea, veriest reptiles have sufficed to prove
To fettered wretchedness, that no Bastile
Is deep enough to exclude the light of love,
Though man for brother man has ceased to feel.
When Philoctetes In The Lemnian Isle
William Wordsworth
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Poem topics: brother, feel, home, light, smile, trust, bird, wild, deep, tear, reason, prove, spiritual, love, I love you, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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John Williams: Wordsworth has chosen one of the very greatest of Sophocles’ tragedies, but a play often overlooked by modern readers. A play about a suppurating ulcer and an unerring bow scarcely registers with an audience attuned to the universality of Romeo and Juliet, the heroic Achilles or tragic King Lear. Wordsworth, however, picks up on the fact that the characters in the play are more familiar to the modern mind than most other Greek tragedies. The young man Neoptolemus takes the greatest risk to his cause which is involved in the recognition of his humanity with the sick man, in refusing to break his word, he dissolves the cripple’s stubbornness and so sets him free, and saves his campaign as well.
Hence:
‘ And trust that spiritual Creatures round us move,
Griefs to allay which Reason cannot heal; ’
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