Wordsworth

LOFTY and strenuous of sentiment But narrow and partial in its scope and bent, And thence the bigot of a local set Of habitudes, meshed round him like a net. Hence too his intellect, though large it be By nature, hath one prime deficiency,— Of moral difference that broad view which leads The steps of thought beyond the snares of creeds And circles of opinion, whether they Be of the Old Time or of yesterday. Hence too his narrow bias, I suspect, Even in poesy to attempt a sect. Still as a Poet he is great and rare, A King of Thought upon the peak of bare And rigid majesty, for power immense Enthroned for ever! And in spirit thence,— Thence let him waft us on a white-wing’d dream Within the murmur of some profluent stream, And there, just whither a dim line of brakes In the remotest haze of distance shakes, On his lone rounds let Peter Bell be seen,— Seen o’er the White Doe on the herbage green Heard breathing where she lies, and near her there “The oldest seeming man that ever wore grey hair.” Then shall we find him verily a Seer Of Nature’s myst’ries, simple and severe. With what a plenitude of pure delight He triumphs on the mountain’s cloudy height, With what a gleeful harmony of joy He wanders down the vale “as happy as a boy!” How in his verse, each picture-pregnant phrase Full to the eye some given shape conveys, And thus though in the jarring city pent Through him we reach the country and content. Fond Memory apprehends with gladdened eyes All that is richest in each wilding’s dyes As blending with the beauty and the grace Of some bright advent of our happier days— Hears through the sway of greenest boughs, as heard Even then, the far voice of some favourite bird, The murmurous industry of bees, the low Responsive throbs of Echo throbbing slow Out of some lonely dell, as to the tread Of our own feet in days for ever fled! Then of some brook that gushes in his lines Glad Fancy drinks or on the bank reclines, While of far cloud, grey rock and ancient tree The dusky shadows on the page we see: Yea, the air sweetens as the spells prevail And our locks seem to wave as in a mountain gale! Still there remains to tell the charm serene Wherewith this Bard most sanctifies the scene: ’Tis that with eyes of love he’s quick to find In all its forms meet ministers of Mind And that with the rare wealth of his own heart As with a golden chain he interlinks each part. But vainly the fond spirit of youth may look For its peculiar food in Wordsworth’s book, Where Passion is but introduced to wear A vestal’s tenderness, demure as fair: Not as to see it the new soul desires, In all the splendour of its tragic fires, Or, at the least, in all the bright distress And rosy beauty of its wilfulness!