a lofty religious passion, a love of beauty, and a pervading plainness, sincerity, and earnestness. It has been said that Wordsworth's vocation was "to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and sincerely virtuous." But he did more than that. He was the unpretentious priest of nature, revealing the beauty of the landscape to the religious heart capable of entering into his holy of holies, about which, however, he threw no veil of mystery. Wordsworth's popularity grew with extreme slowness, and was constantly being eclipsed by more brilliant lights; but since his death, Matthew Arnold has placed him next to Shakespeare and Milton. Says Arnold: "Nature herself seems to take the pen out of his hand and write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power.... Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us in the simple elementary affections and duties, and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, he shows us this joy and renders it so as to make us share it." Says Coleridge: "He shows us, as no other man has done, the beauty, the glory, the holiness of nature." A liking for Wordsworth can come only with time and repeated reading; but as the years go by and we feel the weariness of the strife and struggle and clash of the world about us, we shall be likely more and more often to seek the calm and serenity of his simple and lofty verse, for its sustaining faith and restful quiet. The common things around us will take on a beauty we had not before suspected, duty will appear to be divine service, and in the glories of nature we shall find a heaven that lies about us even from our infancy. It is the mission of poets to clothe the world in beauty. Wordsworth has revealed to us the beauty in the common and universal, in mountain, stream, and valley, in the flower by the wayside, in the child playing in the dust of the road, in the bent form of the peasant sitting in his cottage door. And for him this beauty is transformed into the spirit of holiness, and every act of our daily lives becomes an act of worship unhardened by the worn formality of sect or creed. SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT SHE was a Phantom of delight When first she gleam'd upon my sight; To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; I saw her upon nearer view, Her household motions light and free, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. " And now I see with eye serene With something of angelic light. THE DAFFODILS I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Continuous as the stars that shine Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed and gazed -- but little thought 1804. For oft, when on my couch I lie And then my heart with pleasure fills, STRANGE FITS OF PASSION HAVE I KNOWN STRANGE fits of passion have I known : And I will dare to tell, But in the Lover's ear alone, What once to me befell. When she I loved look'd every day Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening-moon. Upon the moon I fix'd my eye, All over the wide lea; With quick'ning pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me. And now we reach'd the orchard-plot; And, as we climb'd the hill, The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still. In one of those sweet dreams I slept, Kind Nature's gentlest boon! And all the while my eyes I kept My horse moved on; hoof after hoof 1804. WAYS SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways A Maid whom there were none to praise She lived unknown, and few could know But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me! 1799. I TRAVELL'D AMONG UNKNOWN MEN I TRAVELL'D among unknown men, Nor, England! did I know till then 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Among thy mountains did I feel And she I cherish'd turn'd her wheel Beside an English fire. |