down much opposition, and gave rise to a controversy which lasted for some years.
The income from his writings was small, because of the existing distaste for them, and because he had to educate a public up to the appreciation of his standard. It was, therefore, a great assistance when, through the influence of Lord Lonsdale, he was, in 1813, appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland, which brought him in £500 a year. In 1814 "The Excursion" was published. Only five hundred copies were disposed of the first six years. "This will never do," wrote Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review; but he lived to see that he had been far from infallible in his prediction. As a mere narrative, "The Excursion" is faulty: it has little dramatic interest. The conception of a peddler who can converse like a poet, philosopher, and scholar on the highest themes, is not in harmony with the probabilities; but the poem is full of some of the grandest passages in the whole range of English verse. Notwithstanding the ridicule launched at it by Byron, its fame has been daily extending; and it will, perhaps, outlast the brilliant "Childe Harold" of his lordship. It has certainly had more influence upon the poetical culture and taste of the latter half of the nineteenth century than all that Byron ever wrote.
In 1815 "The White Doe of Rylstone" appeared. In 1819 "The Wagoner," dedicated to Charles Lamb, and "Peter Bell," to Southey, were published. In 1822 "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent," containing poems and sonnets, was produced; and in 1835 appeared "Yarrow Revisited," dedicated to Rogers. "The Prelude," a fragment of autobiography, was not published until the author was dead.
"In my ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality,'' says Wordsworth, "I do not profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections, and of the moral being in childhood. I record my own feelings at that time-my absolute spirituality-my all-soulness, if I may so speak. At that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the grave, and that my body would moulder into dust." Elsewhere he says of it: "I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make, for my purpose, the best use of it I could as a poet." The ode referred to stands unapproached in sublimity by any similar work in the English language.
In his Sonnets (a poetic form of which he was fond), Wordsworth is unexcelled, even by Milton. His higher efforts are described by Coleridge as being characterized by "an austere purity of language, both grammatically and logically." No English poet who has dealt with lofty themes is more thoroughly English in his style.
In 1842 the now venerable poet resigned his office as distributor of stamps in favor of one of his sons. A pension of £300 a year was bestowed on him; and, on the death of his friend Southey, in 1843, he was appointed poet-laureate. He died a few days after the completion of his eightieth year.
Wordsworth tells us that when he first thought seriously of being a poet, he looked into himself to see how far he was fitted for the work, and seemed to find then "the first great gift, the vital soul." In this self-estimate he did not err. He was thoroughly in earnest.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ;A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
O blithe new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy twofold shout I hear, That seems to fill the whole air's space, As loud far off as near.
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.
CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR.
Who is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?-
It is the generous spirit who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:
Whose high endeavors are an inward light,
That makes the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn ;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care:
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain
And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower;
Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling rendered more compassionate;
Is placable, because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.-
'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:—
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means, and there will stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire:
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim,
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human-kind,
Is happy as a lover, and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or, if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need :-
He who, though thus endued, as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love.-
'Tis, finally, the man who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,-
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,-
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray:
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpassed;
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
Forever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead, unprofitable name,-
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause :-
This is the happy warrior; this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up in silence, from among the trees
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:-feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blesséd mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:-that serene and blesséd mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart,-and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend,
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh, yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh, then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!
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