long billows of his verse, every inch of canvas strained by the unifying breath of their common epic impulse. It was an organ that Milton mastered, mighty in compass, capable equally of the trumpet's ardors or the slim delicacy of the flute, and sometimes it bursts forth in great crashes through his prose, as if he touched it for solace in the intervals of his toil. If Wordsworth sometimes puts the trumpet to his lips, yet he lays it aside soon and willingly for his appropriate instrument, the pastoral reed. And it is not one that grew by any vulgar stream, but that which Apollo breathed through, tending the flocks of Admetus, that which Pan endowed with every melody of the visible universe, the same in which the soul of the despairing nymph took refuge and gifted with her dual nature, - so that ever and anon, amid the notes of human joy or sorrow, there comes suddenly a deeper and almost awful tone, thrilling us into dim consciousness of a forgotten divinity.

None of our great poets can be called popular in any exact sense of the word, for the highest poetry deals with thoughts and emotions which inhabit, like rarest sea-mosses, the doubtful limits of that shore between our abiding divine and our fluctuating human nature, rooted in the one, but living in the other, seldom laid bare, and otherwise visible only at exceptional moments of entire calm and clearness. Of no other poet except Shake

speare have so many phrases become household words as of Wordsworth. If Pope has made current more epigrams of worldly wisdom, to Wordsworth belongs the nobler praise of having defined for us, and given us for a daily possession, those faint and vague suggestions of other-worldliness of whose gentle ministry with our baser nature the hurry and bustle of life scarcely ever allowed us to be conscious. He has won for himself a secure immortality by a depth of intuition which makes only the best minds at their best hours worthy, or indeed capable, of his companionship, and by a homely sincerity of human sympathy which reaches the humblest heart. Our language owes him gratitude for the purity and abstinence of his style, and we who speak it, for having emboldened us to take delight in simple things, and to trust ourselves to our own instincts. And he hath his reward. It needs not to bid

"Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser";-

for there is no fear of crowding in that little society with whom he is now enrolled as fifth in the succession of the great English Poets.

POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH

Of the Poems in this class, "THE EVENING WALK" and "DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES" were first published in 1793. They are reprinted with some alterations that were chiefly made very soon after their publication.

This notice, which was written some time ago, scarcely ap plies to the Poem, "Descriptive Sketches," as it now stands. The corrections, though numerous, are not, however, such as to prevent its retaining with propriety a place in the class of Juvenile Pieces.

1836.

I.

EXTRACT

FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POEM, COMPOSED IN ANTICI PATION OF LEAVING SCHOOL.

DEAR native regions, I foretell,

From what I feel at this farewell,

That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
And whensoe'er my course shall end,
If in that hour a single tie

Survive of local sympathy,

My soul will cast the backward view,
The longing look alone on you.

Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest
Far in the regions of the west,

Though to the vale no parting beam
Be given, not one memorial gleam,
A lingering light he fondly throws

On the dear hills where first he rose.

II.

1786

WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH.

CALM is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:
Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal
O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.
Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain
Those busy cares that would allay my pain;
Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop again.

III.

AN EVENING WALK.

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.

General Sketch of the Lakes..

Author's Regret of his Youth which was passed amongst them. - Short Description of Noon. Cascade.-Noontide Retreat.- Precipice and slop ing Lights.-Face of Nature as the Sun declines. - Mountain Farm, and the Cock.- Slate-Quarry.- Sunset. - Superstition of the Country connected with that Moment. -Swans.-Female Beggar.- Twilight Sounds. — Western Lights. Spirits. — Night.— Moonlight. Hope. - Night

Sounds.

Conclusion.

FAR from my dearest Friend, 't is mine to rove Through bare gray dell, high wood, and pastoral

cove;

Where Derwent rests, and listens to the roar That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore; Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads, To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads; Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds,

Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds; Where, undisturbed by winds, Winander sleeps, 'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps; Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore, And memory of departed pleasures, more.

* These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that lake.