And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.11

A consecration of music, as in this marvel, to the evolution of abstract thought must in the nature of things be exceptional. Yet the pursuers after melody may find their reward in exploring even the cold, dry places in the Master's philosophy. Grace and fire frequently will reveal themselves in unexpected spots. They light up now and again a dogmatic defiance of the intolerant literary canons of his youth, like Peter Bell—the butt of Byron :

In vain, through every changeful year,

Did Nature lead him as before;

A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

At noon, when by the forest's edge
He lay beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt

The witchery of the soft blue sky! 12

An aspiring reflection will without warning break into

gentle song :

The bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.

Into 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,
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.
The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye

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,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes

By echo multiplied from rock or cave,

Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars
Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven,
When winds are blowing strong.13

From the dreary, flinty groundwork of poor Simon Lee's infirmities is struck out a swift, illuminating spark of emotion, 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 :

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 exalting and rejoicing—often in a setting as artistically satisfying as it is touchingly natural. The poet had studied man; and while he sees cause to lament VOL. II

B

What man has made of man ;

he recognizes with delight 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!
Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.21

There are poets whose works are each a body of literature in itself; and Wordsworth is of them. Though I have 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).

2 Lucy (Poems of the Affections, VIII).

3 She was a Phantom of Delight (Poems of the Imagination, VIII).

4 The Solitary Reaper (Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, IX),

5 To a Nightingale (Poems of the Imagination, IX).

To a Skylark (ibid., XXX).

The Green Linnet (Poems of the Fancy, IX).

8 Daffodils (Poems of the Imagination, XII).

• Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802 (Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part II, xxxvi).

10 Sonnet (Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part I, xxxiii).

11 Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Ode, stanzas 2, 5, 9, and 11.

12 Peter Bell, Part I, stanzas 12 and 15 (Poems of the Imagination). 13 The Excursion, Book IV.

14 Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman, st. 12 (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, VI).

15 The Affliction of Margaret, st. 11 (Poems founded on the Affections, XXIV).

16 Character of the Happy Warrior (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, XX).

17 London, 1802 (Poems dedicated to National Independence, XIV). 18 At the Grave of Burns, 1803, st. 6 (Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, II).

19 Written in March, and Beggars (Poems of the Imagination, XVI and XVIII).

20 Resolution and Independence, st. 20 (ibid., XXII).

21 Personal Talk, st. 4 (Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, XIII).