"
Wordsworth's poetry on the emotional side (as distinguished from its
mystical or its patriotic aspects) could hardly be more exactly
described than in the above sentence. For while there are few poems
of his which could be read to a mixed audience with the certainty of
producing an immediate impression; yet on the other hand all the
best ones gain in an unusual degree by repeated study; and this Is
especially the case with those in which, some touch of tenderness is
enshrined in a scene of beauty, which it seems to interpret while it
is itself exalted by it. Such a poem is _Stepping Westward_, where
the sense of sudden fellowship, and the quaint greeting beneath the
glowing sky, seem to link man's momentary wanderings with the cosmic
spectacles of heaven. Such are the lines where all the wild romance
of Highland scenery, the forlornness of the solitary vales, pours
itself through the lips of the maiden singing at her work, "as if
her song could have no ending,"--
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! For the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
Such--and with how subtle a difference!--is the _Fragment_ in which
a "Spirit of noonday" wears on his face the silent joy of Nature in
her own recesses, undisturbed by beast, or bird, or man,--
Nor ever was a cloudless sky
So steady or so fair.
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