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, 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 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.”
[Illustration: 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.”
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.”