there is a striking contrast between the poetry of browning and the poetry of wordsworth; and this comes naturally from the difference between the two men in genius, temperament and life. i want to trace carefully and perhaps more clearly some of the lines of that difference. i do not propose to ask which of them ranks higher as poet. that seems to me a futile question. the contrast in kind interests me more than the comparison of degree. and this contrast, i think, can best be felt and understood through a closer knowledge of the central theme of each of the two poets.

wordsworth is a poet of recovered joy. he brings consolation and refreshment to the heart,—consolation which is passive strength, refreshment which is peaceful energy. his poetry is addressed not to crowds, but to men standing alone, and feeling their loneliness most deeply when the crowd

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presses most tumultuously about them. he speaks to us one by one, distracted by the very excess of life, separated from humanity by the multitude of men, dazzled by the shifting variety of hues into which the eternal light is broken by the prism of the world,—one by one he accosts us, and leads us gently back, if we will follow him, into a more tranquil region and a serener air. there we find the repose of “a heart at leisure from itself.” there we feel the unity of man and nature, and of both in god. there we catch sight of those eternal stars of truth whose shining, though sometimes hidden, is never dimmed by the cloud-confusions of morality. such is the mission of wordsworth to the age. matthew arnold has described it with profound beauty.

“he found us when the age had bound

our souls in its benumbing round,

he spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.

he laid us as we lay at birth

on the cool flowery lap of earth,

smiles broke from us and we had ease,

the hills were round us, and the breeze

went o’er the sun-lit fields again:

our foreheads felt the wind and rain.

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our youth returned; for there was shed

on spirits that had long been dead,

spirits dried up and closely furled,

the freshness of the early world.”

but precious as such a service is and ever must be, it does not fill the whole need of man’s heart. there are times and moods in which it seems pale and ineffectual. the very contrast between its serenity, its assurance, its disembodied passion, its radiant asceticism, and the mixed lights, the broken music, the fluctuating faith, the confused conflict of actual life, seems like a discouragement. it calls us to go into a retreat, that we may find ourselves and renew our power to live. but there are natures which do not easily adapt themselves to a retreat,—natures which crave stimulus more than consolation, and look for a solution of life’s problem that can be worked out while they are in motion. they do not wish, perhaps they are not able, to withdraw themselves from active life even for the sake of seeing it more clearly.

wordsworth’s world seems to them too bare, too still, too monotonous. the rugged and unpopulous

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mountains, the lonely lakes, the secluded vales, do not attract them as much as the fertile plain with its luxuriant vegetation, the whirling city, the crowded highways of trade and pleasure. simplicity is strange to them; complexity is their native element. they want music, but they want it to go with them in the march, the parade, the festal procession. the poet for them must be in the world, though he need not be altogether of it. he must speak of the rich and varied life of man as one who knows its artificial as well as its natural elements,—palaces as well as cottages, courts as well as sheep-folds. art and politics and literature and science and churchmanship and society,—all must be familiar to him, material to his art, significant to his interpretation. his message must be modern and militant. he must not disregard doubt and rebellion and discord, but take them into his poetry and transform them. he must front

“the cloud of mortal destiny,”

and make the most of the light that breaks through it. such a poet is robert browning; and his poetry

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is the direct answer to at least one side of the modern zeitgeist, restless, curious, self-conscious, energetic, the active, questioning spirit.