65 For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 70 Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) 75 To me was all in all. I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me

80 An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
85 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense.
For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

90 Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 95 of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 100 A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
105 From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,— both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
110 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being. Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks 115 Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while 120 May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead 125 From joy to joy; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 130 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 135 Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
140 Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

145 Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence wilt thou then forget,

150 That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love

155 Of holier love.

oh! with far deeper zeal
Nor wilt thou then forget

That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

(1-57) In the description of Wye scenery, what are the pastoral echoes of "L'Allegro"? What dynamic phrase grandly expresses the step from the conscious to the unconscious influence of nature? Cf. (35-49) to (40-44) in "Il Penseroso" in order to understand how nature may exert its third influence, the "beatifica visio or blessed mood." As the Wye was to Wordsworth, so the Thames might have been to Matthew Arnold, if he had been like the scholar gypsy,

66

" on

Glanvil's page," who relieved his fever of the world by a love of

nature.

"O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames."

The Scholar-Gypsy.

But Arnold finds in nature only his heart's dissatisfaction caused by a lack of belief in God; in the placidity of English landscape he always finds a storm in which lightnings of his soul flash out for a purification in vain.

(58-102) Five years before the composition of this poem Wordsworth had only interpreted nature from a physical delight point of view, due to the conscious influence of nature. Now, after five years, note how he interprets the unconscious influence of nature which was audible at times conveying “The still, sad music of humanity.” Observe the interpretation of nature's third, the divine influence contained in 'Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns," of which dynamic phrase Tennyson says, “The line is almost the grandest in the English language, giving the sense of the abiding in the transient." Analyse this Tennysonian tribute. (102-159) Wordsworth's sister is an example of how the three influences of nature affected the poet. Nature had made him take keen delight in the physical beauty of Dorothy; thẹn it generated an intellectual love, and finally it begot the spiritual or soul love with which he reverenced his sister. Wordsworth has accurately described his gypsy Dorothy of the wild eyes and stammering voice. See De Quincey, Literary Reminiscences, Vol. I. 270–273; 358–365. Dorothy's devotion to her brother in his pedestrian tour of England was great. According to De Quincey, he traveled 180,000 miles. Analyse the dynamic phrases in the poem.

ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

5 The glory and the freshness of a dream.

ΙΟ

15

20

It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II

The Rainbow comes and goes

And lovely is the Rose;

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:

25 The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;

30

Land and Sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every Beast keep holiday; —

Thou Child of Joy,

35 Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy

Shepherd-boy!