Analyzing the Idiot BoyWilliamworth's poem "The Idiot Boy" is perhaps atypical of much of Ofworth's other works in that it tells a story in which the author himself is not a character . Many of Ofworth's poems seem to involve him coming across a person or place, or explicitly remembering having done so. Well, if this poem is a memory, it is not announced as such. The regular rhyme scheme – ABCCB – gives the poem a nursery rhyme quality. In many places, the style seems to overwhelm the content: stanza 47 seems constructed solely to show the rhyme it contains: "Perhaps he climbed an oak / Where he will remain until he is dead" (ll. 233-234) is not a really troubling fate, but it rhymes well with the last two lines of the verse. Many things, major and minor, about this poem may strike the reader as atypical of Worth's work. The very first stanza of the poem gives us only the general setting: "It is eight o'clock, - a clear March night, / The moon is high - the sky is blue [...]" (ll. 1 -2). Worth's poems often begin on a more general scale and narrow into a few stanzas about a very specific place. Here we are given a rough background and leave us there. The next four stanzas speak directly to Betty Foy, a woman who for some unknown purpose is putting her idiot son on a horse, preparing him to ride into the night. The narrator is apparently ignorant of the reason for this moonlight ride, but continues to disapprove, telling Betty to "put it down again" (l. 18) and saying "There ain't no mother, no not one, / But when she hears what you have done, / Oh! Betty will be afraid,” (ll. 24-26). In the sixth stanza we learn the reason for this journey, and the poem is almost… middle of paper… as it is, but he alters his vision to fit his mind. The fact that Johnny had to separate from his mother to gain his intuition is also significant. Worth's parents died, leaving him, and his main recurring themes are the attempt to return to that childhood innocence of when they were alive. Seen in this light, the fact that Johnny is an idiot, an overgrown child, becomes more than just a plot detail. Worth gives himself a happy ending in this poem: after complaining to the Muses that he has been their slave for fourteen years, he has mother and son reunited. The "glory" of Johnny (l. 462) is that he manages to retain the uniqueness of his point of view and observations, and not sacrifice that state of childlike innocence. Work cited Stephen Gill, editor. The Oxford Authors: Williamworth, pp. 67-80. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.