I would not, however, seem to claim too much. The religion which
these later poems of Wordsworth's embody is rather the stately
tradition of a great Church than the pangs and aspirations of a holy
soul. There is little in them--whether for good or evil--of the
stuff of which a Paul, a Francis, a Dominic are made. That fervent
emotion--akin to the passion of love rather than to intellectual or
moral conviction--finds voice through singers of a very different
tone. It is fed by an inward anguish, and felicity which, to those
who have not felt them, seem as causeless as a lover's moods; by
wrestlings not with flesh and blood; by nights of despairing
self-abasement; by ecstasies of an incommunicable peace. How great
the gulf between Wordsworth and George Herbert!--Herbert "offering
at heaven, growing and groaning thither,"--and Wordsworth, for whom
the gentle regret of the lines,--
Me this unchartered freedom tires,
I feel the weight of chance desires,--
forms his most characteristic expression of the self-judgment of the
solitary soul.
Wordsworth accomplished one reconciliation of great importance to
mankind. He showed, as plainly in his way as Socrates had shown it
long ago, with what readiness a profoundly original conception of
the scheme of things will shape itself into the mould of an
established and venerable faith.
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