Analyzing the Silly Boy Williamworth's poem "The Silly Boy" is perhaps atypical of most of Ofworth's other works in that it tells a story in which the The author himself is not a character. Many of Ofworth's poems seem to involve him either in encountering a person or place, or in explicitly remembering having done so. Here, 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, style seems to dominate content: stanza 47 seems constructed solely to emphasize the rhyme it contains: "Perhaps he went up into an oak / Where he will remain until he dies » (ll. 233-234) is not the case. a truly worrying fate, but it rhymes perfectly with the last two lines of the stanza. Several elements, major and minor, of this poem may seem atypical to the reader in Worth's work. The very first stanza of the poem only gives us the general framework: "It is eight o'clock, -- a clear March night, / The moon is up -- the sky is blue [...]" (ll. 1 - 2).Worth's poems often begin on a more general scale and are limited to a few stanzas about a very specific location. Here we are given some basic context and we leave it at that. The next four stanzas speak directly to Betty Foy, a woman who, for some unknown purpose, puts her idiot son on a horse, preparing him to ride into the night. The narrator is apparently unaware of the reason for this moonlight stroll, but he still disapproves, telling Betty to "put him down" (l. 18) and saying "There is no mother, no, not one, / But when she hears what you have finished, / Oh! Betty, she will be afraid” (ll. 24-26, we learn the reason for this trip, and the poem is almost…. .. middle of paper ... as he is, but he changes his vision to suit his mind is also significant that Johnny had to be separated from his mother to gain his insight. Worth are dead, leaving him, and one of his main recurring themes is the attempt to return to that childhood innocence while they were alive. Seen in this light, the fact that Johnny is an idiot, an overgrown child, becomes more than just that. A simple plot detail. Worth allows himself a happy ending in this poem: after complaining to the Muses about having been their slave for fourteen years, he reunites his mother and son. Johnny's "glory" (l. 462) is that he can retain the uniqueness of his point of view and observations, and not sacrifice this state of infantile innocence. Work cited Stephen Gill, editor. The Oxford Authors: Williamworth, pp. 67-80. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.