The Oxford Companion to English Literature

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‘Idiot Boy, The’

‘Idiot Boy, The’,
a ballad by Wordsworth , first published in Lyrical Ballads ( 1798 ). One of the most characteristic and controversial of the poet's early works, it takes as hero the idiot son of a poor countrywoman, Betty Foy, who is sent off on horseback by night to fetch the doctor for a sick neighbour. He is so long gone that his mother sets out to seek him, and finds him at last by a waterfall, whither the pony has wandered freely through the moonlight, to the boy's delight. The neighbour recovers and sets out to meet mother and son, and all three are happily reunited; the boy's description of his adventures,

‘The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
And the sun did shine so cold’,

fittingly illustrate Wordsworth's intention of ‘giving the charm of novelty to things of everyday’. Wordsworth ably defended his choice of subject matter (which offended many) in a letter to John Wilson , ...

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