Views and Values between William Wordsworth and Les Murray
... bush, evident with the images of pure ‘mists of white bursaria blossom.’ A calming tone expressing stunning visual images of Australia’s native forna. Murray is able to glorify the work taking place out in the bush. The simple line structure conveying ‘The men eat big meat sandwiches’, with the emphasis on ‘big’ and ‘meat’ allows Murray to explore the mundane manner in which the two men go about their daily routines. The big meat sandwiches convey the shape of the strong men, hardy farmers who live and breath outdoors and require a large amount of sustenance. Conversation is created through one of the Mitchell characters, who describes the harsh realities of living and working in the bush. ‘Drought that year. Yes. Like trying to farm a road.’ This displays Murray’s belief, emphasizing the adversity the rural farmers must overcome, but at the same time contrasting the idea with feelings of pride and celebration towards the landscape. Again Murray emphasizes the beauty of the people working on the land. He explores them as down to earth and not easily effected by wealth and greed seen in the smoggy cities. ‘Of the pair, one has been rich but never stopped wearing his oil-stained felt hat.’ Murray’s view that the Australian way of life is diverse and ritualized in a way that evokes feelings of belonging and celebration in the landscape is powerfully conveyed. ‘Nearly everything they say is ritual. Sometimes the scene is an avenue. A continuation of the mundane life in which ‘The Mitchells’ rejoice. The simplicity of their existence, yet the happiness it brings. Murray’s theme concentrating on the powerful beauty and glory of the bush landscape is further discussed in his poem, ‘The Gum Forrest’. Through Murray’s belief of celebration and spiritual images he conveys the bush with passionate detailed descriptions. A favourite feature of Murray’s is first-person narrative, which is constantly evoked throughout his poems, eg: ‘The Burning Truck’ or ‘Rainwater Tank’, and is emphasized in ‘The Gum Forest’. Murray draws his readers in with intensely powerful descriptions of an ancient forest. ’This old slow battlefield: parings of armour, cracked collars, elbows, scattered on the ground’. The metaphor conveyed contrasting the Gum tree branches and sticks as ‘elbows’, ‘collars’ and ‘armour’ refers to a dramatic scene of fighting. Murray did experience World War two and the Vietnam war. The images of old bark and dead trees littering the bush floor expresses a vivid image of the scenery one sees when on a bush walk through Australia’s mysterious national parks. Through this powerful image, Murray’s ideas of spirituality in the bush and empowering magnificence of nature are evoked. It also demonstrates Murray’s belief of the sanctity and celebration of life. ‘New trees step out of old: Lemon and ochre splitting out of grey everywhere’. The reference to colourful and intense visual images are a common technique of Murray’s also evident in his poem ‘Flowering Eucalypt in Autumn’. The constant repetition towards the word structure ‘gum forest’ in every stanza including the light marching rhythm evokes feelings of happiness and constant celebration of nature. Murray is clearly hypnotised by this spectacular setting and he contrasts the forest with the ocean, another powerful natural resource, which can appear calm and peaceful like a forest, but it’s power can be greatly underestimated by man. ‘In here is like a great yacht harbour, charmed leaves, innumerable tackle, poles wrapped in spattered soil’. Hyphenated verbal-adjectives shower the page, ‘edge-on’, ‘wax-rolled’, ‘gall-puckered leaves upon leaves’. This sentence structure provides a pallet of rhythmical sounds that force the tongue to jut out the expressions as the rhyme builds higher and higher. ‘Foliage builds like a layering splash’. These word patterns continue to reinforce Murray’s beliefs of gaiety and splendour in the mysterious bush. The reference to a variety of objects including, ‘banksia candles and combs’, ‘water-smuggling creeks’, ‘blackbutt in bloom’ and singed oils’ are all Australian, all produced from nature, specific to Australia. Murray reinforces his ideas of an attractive landscape with energetic detail bursting with movement. ‘A wind is up, rubbing limbs above the bullock roads; mountains are waves in the ocean of the gum forest’. The deep spirituality that Murray effortlessly conveys in ‘The Gum forest’, has echoes of the garden of Eden. Yet this space is displayed as sacred and ghostly alone. Murray brings the forest to life as he explores the youthful nature of a forests rebirth and the mysterious haze inside the bush. ‘Sky sifting, and always a hint of smoke in the light; you can never reach the heart of the gum forest’ The constant repetition that mirrors the forest against the ocean emphasizes the greatness of nature, but also pushes the rhythmic flow of the gum trees and the silent but ever present growth of the native plants. ‘… and the pouring sound high up.’ ‘Why have I denied the passions of my time?’ The trees whisper secrets and Murray appears to be looking for an answer. Through Murray’s two powerful and deeply visual poems, ‘The Mitchells’ and ‘The Gum forest’, Murray is able to explore strong, passionate feelings and beliefs in a spiritual sense, including rhythmic notions, heavy descriptions and a first person narrative that establishes detailed images of the Australian outback landscape. He is able to demonstrate the hardships, which the rural working-class must face to enjoy the empowering beauty of the bush. For William Wordsworth his poetry expresses a pure connection with nature, similar to Les Murray. Through Wordsworth’s poetry he evokes a passionate voice that echoes memories of childhood. The beauty and magic of being a child with a colourful mind highlights the enchanted magic of nature and how such a simple thing as a daffodil can be incorporated into a child’s imagination and made exciting. There is a violent and agitated mood that spills from Wordsworth’s poems. An agitated feeling of missing the past. It is clear, like Murray that Wordsworth finds something truly powerful in the natural landscape. Like a hidden treasure, Wordsworth sets out to understand the natural beauty surrounding him. Through his poems Wordsworth explores this view. ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ further explores this notion of childhood imagination at the simplicity of a ‘host’ of daffodils and how they provide a burst of overwhelming emotion. By exploring himself as a cloud, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’, Wordsworth’s simile highlights the vacant and unintentional journey of the speaker to drift like a cloud through the sky. Clouds drifting also evokes a dreamy half sleep that sees Wordsworth float tiredly along, ‘That floats on high o’er vales and hills.’ The spotting of the daffodils provides a childish innocence as the poet eagerly pounces on a group of daffodils. His excitement in finding the daffodils is highlighted through the repetition of the letter B to create a rhythmic voice and explore the comical effect of finding something so simple as some flowers. ‘When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’ The exaggerated display of descriptive words in the next stanza distinguishes the daffodils as a wonder just like the stars in the night sky and continues to highlight natures gift of golden petals as a little treasure. ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance’. In comparing the daffodils to the stars and then to the river, ‘The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; Wordsworth emphasizes that the ocean and the stars, although truly mystical and...