hips of mossy red

Dorothy Wordsworth pays careful attention to the vegetation above the rock in A Winter's Ramble in Grasmere Vale. In particular, she discusses the ?hips of mossy red? and later writes that ?The splendid moss Is gayer than an April mead- More rich its hues of varied green, Orange, and gold, and glowing red.? In the amount of focus she delivers to the moss, I was reminded of the moss atop the mound of earth in William Wordsworth?s The Thorn. His moss is also ?a beauteous heap,? possessing ?All colours that were ever seen.? Hues of ?olive green? and deep ?vermilion dye? coexist and contribute to the beauty of the mound. Dorothy Wordsworth is singularly delighted by the capacity of nature to produce such vibrant hues; their existence brings her to the excited exclamation of ?Rejoice!? However, although her brother admits to their beauty, he does not equally discover in them the justification for an exultation of life and existence that Dorothy finds. Moss in The Thorn is beautiful, yet the narrator suggests that it also offers protection of a secret. ?But plain it is, the thorn is bound, With heavy tufts of moss, that strive To drag it to the ground.? This moss keeps the thorn in place and further it discourages the men who wished to dig up the heap. It perpetuates the mystery of Martha?s baby where society is left to wonder whether or not the child lies beneath the mound. Dorothy finds the moss a part of nature that is exceedingly beautiful, but it does not possess supernatural power. The adjectives which describe the color of the moss in her poem are simple (red, green, orange), as is her interpretation of their beauty. The red of A Winter's Ramble in Grasmere Vale becomes vermilion in The Thorn, as William Wordsworth describes the complexity and mystery of nature in his description of the moss.