by Shaheen Darr

Created on: January 03, 2009   Last Updated: January 25, 2009

William Wordsworth (1770 1850) - This beautiful poem, published in 1807 was written about William Wordsworth's wife Mary Hutchinson, whom he married in 1802. They were good friends and knew each other since their school days. The poem has ten lines in each of the three stanzas and each line has rhyming words at the end of it to give it a continuous rhythm throughout.

PERFECT WOMAN

SHE was a phantom of delight

When first she gleam'd upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;

Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn;

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay

In the first stanza Wordsworth starts by describing the woman as a "phantom of delight" which gives an almost unreal quality to her. The same description continues as he calls her a "lovely apparition" and he concludes the stanza by saying that she was sent to him to "haunt, startle and waylay". The words "haunt and startle" give her a ghostly quality while the word "waylay" describes the woman as someone who can distract with her loveliness. To him her eyes and hair are fair like the twilight giving her almost ethereal and ghostly quality and yet she has very real qualities like being cheerful, gay and being a "dancing shape"

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles

In the second stanza he goes beyond the ethereal and the unreal and starts to see a "nearer view" of her. This means that he sees her in the role of a housewife as she goes about her household work. Even then her motions stay "light and free" indicating the softness and gentleness of her character. Now he is discovering other qualities about her which make her human, she can love as well as cry and she can praise as well as blame. She is a creature not too "bright or good" as he sees the simplicity and virginal qualities in her nature. The words used are now "sweet", "simple" and he has moved beyond the first image of her as being a phantom and an apparition too beautiful to be human to a more realistic person going about her daily routines.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A being breathing thoughtful

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