reflection. Thirdly, The sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs, the frequent curiosa felicitas of his diction. Fourthly, The perfect truth of nature in his images and descriptions, as taken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genial intimacy with the very spirit which gives a physiognomic expression to all the works of nature. Fifthly, A meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility: a sympathy with man as man; the sympathy, indeed, of a contemplator rather than a fellowsufferer and co-mate (spectator, haud particeps), but of a contemplator from whose view no difference of rank conceals the sameness of the nature; no injuries of wind or weather, or toil, or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face divine. Last, and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift of imagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of fancy, Words worth, to my feelings, is always graceful, and sometimes recondite. The likeness is occasionally too strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, or is such as appears the creature of predetermined research, rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed, his fancy seldom displays itself as mere and unmodified fancy. But in imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare and Milton, and yet in a mind perfectly unborrowed, and his own. To employ his own words, which are at once an instance and an illustration, he does indeed, to all thoughts and to all objects 'Add the gleam, The light that never was on sea or land, "The great poet of our times, Wordsworth-one of the few who are to livehas gone to common life, to the feelings of our universal nature, to the obscure and neglected portions of society, for beautiful and touching themes. Genius is not a creator, in the sense of fancying or feigning what does not exist. Its distinction is to discern more of truth than common minds. It sees under disguises and humble forms everlasting beauty. This it is the prerogative of Wordsworth to discern and reveal in the ordinary walks of life, in the common human heart. He has revealed the loveliness of the primitive feelings, of the universal affections of the human soul. The grand truth which pervades his poetry, is that the beautiful is not confined to the rare, the new, the distant-to scenery and modes of life open only to the few, but that it is poured forth profusely on the common earth and sky, that it gleams from the loneliest flower, that it lights up the humblest sphere, that the sweetest affections lodge in lowliest hearts, that there is sacredness, dignity, and loveliness in lives which few eyes rest on-that, even in the absence of all in tellectual culture, the domestic relations can quietly nourish that disinterestedness which is the element of all greatness, and without which intellectual power is a splendid deformity. Wordsworth is the poet of humanity; he teaches reverence for our universal nature; he breaks down the factitious barriers between human hearts." FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POEM, DEAR native regions, I foretell, Thus, when the sun, prepared for rest, Where, deep embosomed, shy* Winander peeps [steeps; 'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore, And memory of departed pleasures, more. Fair scenes! ere-while I taught, a happy child, The echoes of your rocks my carols wild: Then did no ebb of cheerfulness demand Sad tides of joy from Mela' choly's hand; In youth's keen eye the livelong day was bright, The sun at morning, and the stars of night, Alike, when heard the bittern's hollow bill, Or the first woodcockst roamed the moonlight hill. In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain, And hope itself was all I knew of pain. For then, even then, the little heart would beat [seat, At times, while young Content forsook her And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed Where, tipped with gold, the mountain[summits glowed. Alas! the idle tale of man is found Depicted in the dial's moral round; Hope with Reflection blends her social rays To gild the total tablet of his days; These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that lake. In the beginning of winter these mountains are frequented by woodcocks, which in dark nights retire into the woods. But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? The eye reposes on a secret bridget Half gray, half shagged with ivy to its ridge; Whence hangs, in the cool shade, the list. less swain Lingering behind his disappearing wain. To show what pleasures yet to me remain,Did Sabine grace adorn n., living line, were seen, When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still, [hill, Breathed a pale steam around the glaring And shades of deep-embattled clouds [between; Spotting the northern cliffs, with lights When, at the barren wall's unsheltered end, Where long rails far into the lake extend, Crowded the shorten'd herds, and beat the tides [speckled sides; With their quick tails, and lashed their! When school-boys stretched their length upon the green; [ing scene! And round the humming elm, a glimmerIn the brown park, in herds, the troubled deer [ear; Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing When horses in the sunburnt intake stood, And vainly eyed below the tempting flood, Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress, With forward neck the closing gate to press--[rill Then while I wandered where the huddling! Brightens with water-breaks the sombrous ghyll,t feet. As by enchantment, an obscure retreat Opened at once, and stayed my devious [close, While thick above the rill the branches In rocky basin its wild waves repose, Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green, [weeds between; Cling from the rocks, with pale wood Save that aloft the subtle sunbeams shine On withered briars that o'er the crags recline, Sole light admitted here, a small cascade, Illumes with sparkling foam the impervious shade; Beyond, along the vista of the brook, Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook, The word take is local and signifies a mountam inclosure. + Ghyll is also, I believe, a tenn confined to this country, ghyll and dingle have the same meaning. Blandusias praise, wild stream, should yield to thine ! Never shall ruthless minister of death Mid thy soft glooms the glittering steel The mystic shapes that by thy margin rove fined. There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed, Come forth, and here retire in purple shade: [white, Even the white stems of birch, the cottage Soften their glare before the mellow light: The skiffs, at anchor where with umbrage wide [hide, Yon chestnuts half the latticed boat-house Shed from their sides, that face the sun's slant beam, [lous stream: Strong flakes of radiance on the tremuRaised by yon travelling flock, a dusty cloud [moving shroud; Mounts from the road, and spreads its The shepherd, all involved in wreaths of fire, [lost entire. Now shows a shadowy speck, and now is Into a gradual calm the zephyrs sink: A blue rim borders all the lake's still brink; And now, on every side, the surface breaks Into blue spots, and slowly lengthening streaks; [bright Here, plots of sparkling water tremble With thousand thousand twinkling points of light; [away, There, waves that, hardly weltering, die Tip their smooth ridges with a softer ray, And now the universal tides repose, And, brightly blue, the burnished mirror glows, Save where, along the shady western marge, Coasts, with industrious oar, the charcoal barge; [sleeps, The sails are dropped, the poplar's foliage And insects clothe, like dust, the glassy deeps. In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song, Dashed o'er the rough rock, lightly leaps along; From lonesome chapel at the mountain'. feet, Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat; [boa Sounds from the water-side the hammered And blasted quarry thunders, heard remote! Even here, amid the sweep of endless woods, [floods, Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs, and alling Not undelightful are the simplest charms, Found by the grassy door of mountain farms. Sweetly ferocious, t round his native walks, [stalks; Pride of his sister-wives, the monarch Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread; throat, A crest of purple tops his warrior head. Afar, his tail he closes and unfurls; [hurls Bright sparks his black and rolling eye-ball On tiptoe reared, he strains his clarion [remote: Threatened by faintly-answering farms Again with his shrill voice the mountain rings, [sound his wings! While, flapped with conscious pride, re Brightening the cliffs between, where sombrous pine And yew-tree o'er the silver rocks recline; numerous wains: How busy all the enormous hive within, While Echo dallies with the various din! Some (hardly heard their chisels' clinking sound) Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound; Some, dim between the aerial cliffs descried, [side O'erwalk the slender plank from side to These, by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring, Glad from their airy baskets hang and sing. Hung o'er a cloud, above the steep that rears [pears; An edge all flame, the broadening sun apA long blue bar its ægis orb divides, And breaks the spreading of its golden tides; "Dolcemente feroce."-TASSO. In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of the same animal in the "L'Agriculture; "Vivid rings of green." - Greenwood's ou, Les Georgiques Françaises,' of M Poem on Shooting. Rossuet. |