The Thorn by William Wordsworth   “The Thorn” turns on two elements: the narrative and the linguistic.  Two characters, both nameless, speak the poem.  The first, whom Wordsworth in his 1800 “Note to ‘The Thorn’” suggests may be a retired “sea captain of a small trading vessel,” alerts his interlocutor of the presence on a nearby hill of an “old,” “grey,” and “aged” thorn tree (1.1-6), as well as the existence of Martha Ray, “a woman in a scarlet cloak” (6.63) whom he has seen through his telescope “day and night” (7.66) attending the “hill of moss” (4.36) beside the tree and crying “Oh misery!  oh misery!” (6.64).  The second character, who has significantly less to say, only asks questions about Martha.  Curiously, the…