In a treatise, as Unbelievers might deem it, on Religious Faith, suddenly steps: from the blazing chariot of the sun A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute, Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport; And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs, By echo multiplied from rock or cave, Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars From the dreary, flinty groundwork of poor Simon Lee's infirmities is struck out a swift, illuminating spark, as tears speak his astonished thankfulness for a petty kindness: I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning ; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.14 Sirach, the Son of Consolation, might have learnt much from Margaret's complaint of the neighbourly attempts at comfort to her in her bereavement : 6 They pity me, and not my grief! 15 They who neglect their Wordsworth do not know how much they lose in a multitude of ways. The least study will convince of the folly of the description of the philosophy itself as wordy, drowzy, frowzy'. It is, on the contrary, a body of thought elevating, comforting, and cheering— often in a setting as artistically harmonious as it is touchingly natural. The poet had studied man; and while he sees cause to lament What man has made of man ; he recognizes with joy that, nevertheless, We have all of us one human heart. He is grateful to Nature, and to Nature's source, that, in improving earth's surface into infinite loveliness, they have not neglected the development of man also. There is many a one who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train, Turns his necessity to glorious gain.16 He thanks Heaven for Milton, whose soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; 17 for Burns, who showed my youth How Verse may build a princely throne On humble truth; 18 for the plough-boy's merry whoop; and for the stately Beggar-woman: a creature Beautiful to see-a weed of glorious feature ! 19 for the proofs of humanity's ability to rise superior to fortune, afforded alike by the Royal Swede, and by the leech-gatherer, motionless as a cloud, on the lonely moor: I could have laughed myself to scorn to find In that decrepit man so firm a mind; 20 for Spring's bestowal of a train of flowers: a mighty band, Singing at my heart's command; for the spirit breathed for him in the woods, which made the sounding cataract Haunt him like a passion; and had justified his prayer and hope, as he meditates gratefully on the choir of Poets: who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! body of litera Though I have 6 There are poets whose works are each a ture in itself; and Wordsworth is of them. dared to touch various keys in his mighty organ, I have refrained from a hundred more. With many a grieving look back, I have passed the Yarrows by, the vision of the Girl of Inversneyde, the Sonnet's sonnet, the overflowing music of Brougham Castle's welcome to its Shepherd Lord, the high-minded farewell to the wondrous Potentate' of Eildon's triple height, the dramatic force and generous appeal of Hart-leap Well, the pathos of the improvised requiem on departed fellows in song, the grace and the passion of Laodamia, wild-flower Ruth, and the golden Duddon chain, with numberless things of beauty and wisdom besides. Single pieces, like the great Ode, are matter for entire volumes. Together they reflect the whole poetry of life as lived, and as it ought to be lived. In that unison I find in effect an explanation of the common indifference to Wordsworth's later verse. He mixed so much of his self-communings, the conviction of his obligation to rebuke, reform, and teach, that the Poet often was lost to view in the Preacher. Is it too much to assume that to it also, to the absolute identity of the man and his inspiration, the indefinable magic of the earlier poetry must be traced! Nowhere in the English Helicon is it harder to track home the fascination, by so much as it is always harder to analyse an author than his book. When, however, it can be done, and is done, when, as in the morning of life, the poet poured his whole soul into his verse, when he followed after every aspiration with the ardour of a lover as well as the patience of a teacher, when he arrayed each in diction as lovely as it is simple, I do not wonder that the best of the nation's youth rallied to his bugle call. Even from the far distance, believe me, its echoes enchant. Let any submit themselves honestly to the spell, and they will understand. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Edward Moxon, 1847. 1 Three Years she Grew in Sun and Shower (Poems of the Imagination, X), p. 144. 2 Lucy (Poems of the Affections, VIII), pp. 77-8. 3 She was a Phantom of Delight (Poems of the Imagination, VIII), p. 143. 4 The Solitary Reaper (Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, IX), p. 223. • To a Nightingale (Poems of the Imagination, IX), pp. 143–4. To a Skylark (ibid., XXX), p. 162. 7 The Green Linnet (Poems of the Fancy, IX), p. 118. 9 8 Daffodils (Poems of the Imagination, XII), p. 144. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802 (Miscellaneous Sonnets, XXXVI), p. 209. 10 Sonnet XXXIII (Miscellaneous Sonnets), p. 203. 11 Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Ode, stanzas 2, 5, 9, and 11, pp. 441-3. 12 Peter Bell, Part I, stanzas 12 and 15 (Poems of the Imagination), p. 187. 13 The Excursion, Book IV, p. 483. 14 Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman, st. 12 (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, VI), p. 364. 15 The Affliction of Margaret, st. 11 (Poems founded on the Affections, XXIV), p. 85. 16 Character of the Happy Warrior (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, XX), p. 371. 17 London, 1802 (Poems dedicated to National Independence, XIV), p. 238. 18 At the Grave of Burns, 1803, st. 6 (Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, II), p. 219. 19 Written in March, and Beggars (Poems of the Imagination, XVI and XVIII), pp. 146 and 147. 20 Resolution and Independence, st. 20 (ibid., XXII), p. 153. 21 Personal Talk, XIII (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, IV), p. 368. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 1772-1834 WHAT a poet but for the metaphysician! A poet feels; a metaphysician reasons. The one leaps; the other digs. Without imagination the one cannot breathe; and the other cannot guess at the lie of a lode. But for the poet, it is life; for the metaphysician, a stimulant. In the same mind the two tendencies conflict, unless one consent to serve. To his friends and the Highgate circle Coleridge was the more signal marvel because he united both. For posterity he would have been a profounder philosopher had he been less of a poet. Had he concerned himself less with the solution of mental problems, he must have filled a wider, not a more exalted, space in the history of poetry. His positive poetical career was brief. The quantity of his work in the period is moderate. Virtually the whole bears an unmistakable stamp of high intelligence and noble feeling. I read Religious Musings, and find grand images and mines of reflection; as, for instance, that in our Heavenly Father's vast human family no Cain Injures-uninjured-in her best aim'd blow or the lines immediately preceding, which Lamb declared to be without a rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading': |