“’Tis Nature’s law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked.”
And then he went on to trace, not always with full poetic inspiration,
but still with many touches of beautiful insight, the good that the old
beggar did and received in the world, by wakening among the peasants
to whose doors he came from year to year, the memory of past deeds of
charity, by giving them a sense of kinship with the world of want and
sorrow, and by bestowing on them in their poverty the opportunity of
showing mercy to one whose needs were even greater than their own;
for,—the poet adds—with one of those penetrating flashes which are the
surest mark of his genius,—
“Man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause
That we have all of us one human heart.”
Nor did Wordsworth forget, in his estimate of the value of the simplest
life, those pleasures which are shared by all men.
“Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom
High as the highest Peak of Furniss-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in fox-glove bells;
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is.”
He sees a Miller dancing with two girls on the platform of a boat moored
in the river Thames, and breaks out into a song on the “stray pleasures”
that are spread through the earth to be claimed by whoever shall find
them. A little crowd of poor people gather around a wandering musician in
a city street, and the poet cries,
“Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream;
They are deaf to your murmurs—they care not for you,
Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!”
He describes Coleridge and himself as lying together on the greensward in
the orchard by the cottage at Grasmere, and says
“If but a bird, to keep them company,
Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween,
As pleased as if the same had been a maiden Queen.”
It was of such simple and unchartered blessings that he loved to sing. He
did not think that the vain or the worldly would care to listen to his
voice. Indeed he said in a memorable passage of gentle scorn that he did
not expect his poetry to be fashionable. “It is an awful truth,” wrote he
to Lady Beaumont, “that there neither is nor can be any genuine enjoyment
of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons who either live
or wish to live in the broad light of the world,—among those who either
are, or are striving to make themselves, people of consideration in
society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because to be incapable of
a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is to be without love of
human nature and reverence for God.” He did not expect that his poetry
would be popular in that world where men and women devote themselves to
the business of pleasure, and where they care only for the things that
minister to vanity or selfishness,—and it never was.
But there was another world where he expected to be welcome and of
service. He wished his poetry to cheer the solitary, to uplift the
downcast, to bid the despairing hope again, to teach the impoverished
how much treasure was left to them. In short, he intended by the quiet
ministry of his art to be one of those
“Poets who keep the world in heart,”
—and so he was.
It is impossible to exaggerate the value of such a service. Measured by
any true and vital standard Wordsworth’s contribution to the welfare of
mankind was greater, more enduring than that of the amazing Corsican,
Bonaparte, who was born but a few months before him and blazed his way to
glory. Wordsworth’s service was to life at its fountain-head. His remedy
for the despair and paralysis of the soul was not the prescription of a
definite philosophy as an antidote. It was a hygienic method, a simple,
healthful, loving life in fellowship with man and nature, by which
the native tranquillity and vigour of the soul would be restored. The
tendency of his poetry is to enhance our interest in humanity, to promote
the cultivation of the small but useful virtues, to brighten our joy in
common things, and to deepen our trust in a wise, kind, over-ruling God.
Wordsworth gives us not so much a new scheme of life as a new sense of
its interior and inalienable wealth. His calm, noble, lofty poetry is
needed to-day to counteract the belittling and distracting influence
of great cities; to save us from that most modern form of insanity,
publicomania, which sacrifices all the sanctities of life to the craze
for advertising; and to make a little quiet space in the heart, where
those who are still capable of thought, in this age of clattering
machinery, shall be able to hear themselves think.
V
But there is one still deeper element in Wordsworth’s poetry. He tells
us very clearly that the true liberty and grandeur of _mankind_ are
to be found along the line of obedience to law and fidelity to duty.
This is the truth which was revealed to him, slowly and serenely, as a
consolation for the loss of his brief revolutionary dream. He learned
to rejoice in it more and more deeply, and to proclaim it more and more
clearly, as his manhood settled into firmness and strength.
Fixing his attention at first upon the humblest examples of the power of
the human heart to resist unfriendly circumstances, as in _Resolution
and Independence_, and to endure sufferings and trials, as in _Margaret_
and _Michael_, he grew into a new conception of the right nobility. He
saw that it was not necessary to make a great overturning of society
before the individual man could begin to fulfil his destiny. “What then
remains?” he cries—
“To seek
Those helps for his occasion ever near
Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed
On the first motion of a holy thought;
Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer—
A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart,
Issuing however feebly, nowhere flows
Without access of unexpected strength.
But, above all, the victory is sure
For him, who seeking faith by virtue, strives
To yield entire submission to the law
Of conscience—conscience reverenced and obeyed,
As God’s most intimate presence in the soul,
And his most perfect image in the world.”
If we would hear this message breathed in tones of lyric sweetness, as
to the notes of a silver harp, we may turn to Wordsworth’s poems on the
Skylark,—
“Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.”
If we would hear it proclaimed with grandeur, as by a solemn organ;
or with martial ardour, as by a ringing trumpet, we may read the _Ode
to Duty_ or _The Character of the Happy Warrior_, two of the noblest
and most weighty poems that Wordsworth ever wrote. There is a certain
distinction and elevation about his moral feelings which makes them in
themselves poetic. In his poetry beauty is goodness and goodness is
beauty.
But I think it is in the Sonnets that this element of Wordsworth’s poetry
finds the broadest and most perfect expression. For here he sweeps upward
from the thought of the freedom and greatness of the individual man to
the vision of nations and races emancipated and ennobled by loyalty to
the right. How pregnant and powerful are his phrases! “Plain living and
high thinking.” “The homely beauty of the good old cause.” “A few strong
instincts and a few plain rules.” “Man’s unconquerable mind.” “By the
soul only, the Nations shall be great and free.” The whole series of
_Sonnets addressed to Liberty_, published in 1807, is full of poetic and
prophetic fire. But none among them burns with a clearer light, none
is more characteristic of him at his best, than that which is entitled
_London, 1802_.
“Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up; return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou had’st a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.”
This sonnet embraces within its “scanty plot of ground” the roots of
Wordsworth’s strength. Here is his view of nature in the kinship between
the lonely star and the solitary soul. Here is his recognition of life’s
common way as the path of honour, and of the lowliest duties as the
highest. Here is his message that manners and virtue must go before
freedom and power. And here is the deep spring and motive of all his
work, in the thought that _joy_, _inward happiness_, is the dower that
has been lost and must be regained.
Here then I conclude this chapter on Wordsworth. There are other things
that might well be said about him, indeed that would need to be said if
this were intended for a complete estimate of his influence. I should
wish to speak of the deep effect which his poetry has had upon the style
of other poets, breaking the bondage of “poetic diction” and leading the
way to a simpler and more natural utterance. I should need to touch upon
his alleged betrayal of his early revolutionary principles in politics,
and to show, (if a paradox may be pardoned), that he never had them and
that he always kept them. He never forsook liberty; he only changed his
conception of it. He saw that the reconstruction of society must be
preceded by reconstruction of the individual. Browning’s stirring lyric,
_The Lost Leader_,—
“Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,”—
may have been written with Wordsworth in mind, but it was a singularly
infelicitous suggestion of a remarkably good poem.
All of these additions would be necessary if this estimate were intended
to be complete. But it is not, and so let it stand.
If we were to choose a motto for Wordsworth’s poetry it might be this:
“Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice.” And if we looked farther
for a watchword, we might take it from that other great poet, Isaiah,
standing between the fierce radicals and sullen conservatives of Israel,
and saying,
“In quietness and confidence shall be your strength,
In rest and in returning ye shall be saved.”
“THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT”