Clear and Gentle Stream

• "Clear and gentle stream!"


  - Opens with exclamation mark - addressing stream directly - indicates love for stream as pays homage to place he spent childhood

  - Adjectives "clear" and "gentle" help to reinforce deep affection speaker feels for stream and how the water is unchanged and always flowing freely
• Tone


  - Poem is nostalgic- bridges is thoughtful and allows his thoughts to get lost in beauty of nature
• "Known and loved for so long"


  - Emphasises love for stream - assonance within line help to convey sense of yearning for childhood days

  - Speakers appreciation and devotion to stream - phrase "so long" emphasises closeness with stream- constructs image of him returning once old
• " Where my old seat was/here again i sit"


  - Change in tense highlights passing of time " interpreted as comforting to speakers- place of comfort is eternal and forever unchanging as he returns to sit in sane place

  - Stream does not change over time - contrasts author who has aged as years have passed
• CONTEXT


  - Author wrote hymns - poem written in 1973 has been set to music which reflects bridges lyrical nature

  - Known for his emotive and rhymiical poetry. Was appointed poet laurete in 1913

  - Bridges was a doctor then retired to become a writer - was a religious man reflected in his poetry

  - I'm poem shows his knowledge of literacy styles and how he was influenced by nature
• "Boyish days" "youthful song" "old lament"


  - Juxtipisition used to show time has passed. However he still has the same "idle dream" once he spends time near the stream
• "Eddies play" "her brightening mood"


  - Personification on nature - shows how humans and nature are at one with each other - Romantic poet