By sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged May meet at noontide-FEAR and trembling HOPE, To lie, and listen to the mountain flood The effect of the old man's figure in the poem of Resignation and Independence, vol. ii, p. 33. While he was talking thus, the lonely place, Or the 8th, 9th, 19th, 26th, 31st, and 33rd, in the collection of miscellaneous sonnets-the sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland, p. 210, or the last ode, from which I especially select the two following stanzas or paragraphs, pp. 349-350. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The youth who daily further from the East At length the man perceives it die away, And pp. 352-4 of the same ode. O joy that in our embers The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast; Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised! But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. And since it would be unfair to conclude with an extract, which, though highly characteristic, must yet, from the nature of the thoughts and the subject, be interesting, or perhaps intelligible, to but a limited number of readers; I will add, from the poet's last published work, a passage equally Wordsworthian; of the beauty of which, and of the imaginative power displayed therein, there can be but one opinion, and one feeling. See White Doe', p. 5. Fast the church-yard fills;-anon · The cluster round the porch, and the folk They sing a service which they feel, A moment ends the fervent din, The only voice which you can hear When soft!-the dusky trees between, A solitary doe! White she is as lily of June, And beauteous as the silver moon A glittering ship, that hath the plain What harmonious pensive changes Now a step or two her way The following analogy will, I am apprehensive, appear dim and fantastic, but in reading Bartram's Travels I could not help transcribing the following lines as a sort of allegory, or connected simile and metaphor of Wordsworth's intellect and genius.— The soil is a deep, rich, dark mould, on a deep stratum of tenacious clay; and that on a foundation of rocks, which often break through both strata, lifting their back above the surface. The trees which chiefly grow here are the gigantic black oak; magnolia magni-floria; fraxinus excelsior; platane; and a few stately tulip trees.' What Mr. Wordsworth will produce, it is not for me to prophesy : but I could pronounce with the liveliest convictions what he is capable of producing. It is the FIRST GENUINE PHILOSOPHIC POEM. The preceding criticism will not, I am aware, avail to overcome the prejudices of those who have made it a business to attack and ridicule Mr. Wordsworth's compositions. Truth and prudence might be imaged as concentric circles. The poet may perhaps have passed beyond the latter, but he has confined himself far within the bounds of the former, in designating these critics, as too petulant to be passive to a genuine poet, and too feeble to grapple with him ;- men of palsied imaginations, in whose minds all healthy action is |