but what kind of poetry? what was to be its motive power? what its animating spirit? here the experience of life acting upon his natural character became the deciding factor.

wordsworth was born a lover of joy, not sensual,

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but spiritual. the first thing that happened to him, when he went out into the world, was that he went bankrupt of joy. the enthusiasm of his youth was dashed, the high hope of his spirit was quenched. at the touch of reality his dreams dissolved. it seemed as though he were altogether beaten, a broken man. but with the gentle courage of his sister to sustain him, his indomitable spirit rose again, to renew the adventure of life. he did not evade the issue, by turning aside to seek for fame or wealth. his problem from first to last was the problem of joy,—inward, sincere, imperishable joy. how to recover it after life’s disappointments, how to deepen it amid life’s illusions, how to secure it through life’s trials, how to spread it among life’s confusions,—this was the problem that he faced. this was the wealth that he desired to possess, and to increase, and to diffuse,—the wealth

“of joy in widest commonalty spread.”

none of the poets has been as clear as wordsworth in the avowal that the immediate end of poetry is pleasure. “we have no sympathy,” said he, “but what is propagated by pleasure, ... wherever

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we sympathise with pain, it will be found that the sympathy is produced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. we have no knowledge, that is no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone.” and again: “the end of poetry is to produce excitement, in co-existence with an over-balance of pleasure.”

william wordsworth.

painted by w. boxall.

after an engraving by j. bromley.

but it may be clearly read in his poetry that what he means by “pleasure” is really an inward, spiritual joy. it is such a joy, in its various forms, that charms him most as he sees it in the world. his gallery of human portraits contains many figures, but every one of them is presented in the light of joy,—the rising light of dawn, or the waning light of sunset. lucy gray and the little maid in we are seven are childish shapes of joy. the highland girl is an embodiment of virginal gladness, and the poet cries

“now thanks to heaven! that of its grace

hath led me to this lovely place.

joy have i had; and going hence

i bear away my recompence.”

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wordsworth regards joy as an actual potency of vision:

“with an eye made quiet by the power

of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

we see into the heart of things.”

joy is indeed the master-word of his poetry. the dancing daffodils enrich his heart with joy.

“they flash upon that inward eye

which is the bliss of solitude;

and then my heart with pleasure fills,

and dances with the daffodils.”

the kitten playing with the fallen leaves charms him with pure merriment. the skylark’s song lifts him up into the clouds.

“there is madness about thee, and joy divine

in that song of thine.”

he turns from the nightingale, that creature of a “fiery heart,” to the stock-dove:

“he sang of love, with quiet blending,

slow to begin and never ending;

of serious faith, and inward glee;

that was the song—the song for me.”

he thinks of love which grows to use

“joy as her holiest language.”

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he speaks of life’s disenchantments and wearinesses as

“all that is at enmity with joy.”

when autumn closes around him, and the season makes him conscious that his leaf is sere and yellow on the bough, he exclaims

“yet will i temperately rejoice;

wide is the range and free the choice

of undiscordant themes;

which haply kindred souls may prize

not less than vernal ecstacies,

and passion’s feverish dreams.”

temperate rejoicing,—that is the clearest note of wordsworth’s poetry. not an unrestrained gladness, for he can never escape from that deep, strange experience of his youth. often, in thought, he

“must hear humanity in fields and groves

pipe solitary anguish; or must hang

brooding above the fierce confederate storm

of sorrow, barricadoed evermore

within the walls of cities.”

but even while he hears these sounds he will not be “downcast or forlorn.” he will find a deeper music

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to conquer these clashing discords. he will learn, and teach, a hidden joy, strong to survive amid the sorrows of a world like this. he will not look for it in some far-off unrealized utopia,

“but in the very world which is the world

of all of us,—the place where in the end

we find our happiness, or not at all!”

to this quest of joy, to this proclamation of joy, he dedicates his life.

“by words

which speak of nothing more than what we are

would i arouse the sensual from their sleep

of death, and win the vacant and the vain

to noble raptures.”

and herein he becomes a prophet to his age,—a prophet of the secret of joy, simple, universal, enduring,—the open secret.

the burden of wordsworth’s prophecy of joy, as found in his poetry, is threefold. first, he declares with exultation that he has seen in nature the evidence of a living spirit in vital correspondence with the spirit of man. second, he expresses the deepest, tenderest feeling of the inestimable value of the humblest human life,—a feeling which

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through all its steadiness is yet strangely illumined by sudden gushes of penetration and pathos. third, he proclaims a lofty ideal of the liberty and greatness of man, consisting in obedience to law and fidelity to duty.

i am careful in choosing words to describe the manner of this threefold prophesying, because i am anxious to distinguish it from didacticism. not that wordsworth is never didactic; for he is very often entirely and dreadfully so. but at such times he is not at his best; and it is in these long uninspired intervals that we must bear, as walter pater has said, “with patience the presence of an alien element in wordsworth’s work, which never coalesced with what is really delightful in it, nor underwent his peculiar power.” wordsworth’s genius as a poet did not always illuminate his industry as a writer. in the intervals he prosed terribly. there is a good deal of what lowell calls “dr. wattsiness,” in some of his poems.

but the character of his best poems was strangely inspirational. they came to him like gifts, and he read them aloud as if wondering at their beauty.

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through the protracted description of an excursion, or the careful explanation of a state of mind, he slowly plods on foot; but when he comes to the mount of vision, he mounts up with wings as an eagle. in the analysis of a character, in the narration of a simple story, he often drones, and sometimes stammers; but when the flash of insight arrives, he sings. this is the difference between the pedagogue and the prophet: the pedagogue repeats a lesson learned by rote, the prophet chants a truth revealed by vision.