Thy father cares not for my breast,
'Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest,
'Tis all thine own!-and, if its hue
Be changed, that was so fair to view,
'Tis fair enough for thee, my dove!
My beauty, little child, is flown,
But thou wilt live with me in love;
And what if my poor cheek be brown ?
'Tis well for me, thou canst not see
How pale and wan it else would be."

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Last, and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift of IMAGINATION in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of Fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is not always graceful, and sometimes recondite. The likeness is occasionally too strange, or demands too peculiar 15 a point of view, or is such as appears the creature of predetermined research, rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed his fancy seldom displays itself, as mere and unmodified fancy. But in imaginative power, he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet 20 in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own. To employ his own words, which are at once an instance and an illustration, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects

The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream."

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I shall select a few examples as most obviously manifesting this faculty; but if I should ever be fortunate enough to render my analysis of imagination, its origin and characters, thoroughly intelligible to the reader, he will scarcely 30 open on a page of this poet's works without recognising, more or less, the presence and the influences of this faculty. From the poem on the Yew Trees, vol. I. page 303, 304. "But worthier still of note

Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove :

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Huge trunks!-and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,-
Not uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ;-a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes

May meet at noontide-FEAR and trembling HOPE,
SILENCE and FORESIGHT-DEATH, the skeleton,

And TIME, the shadow-there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er

With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain flood

Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves."

The effect of the old man's figure in the poem of Resignaao tion and Independence, vol. II. page 33.

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"While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old man's shape, and speech, all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently."

Or the 8th, 9th, 19th, 26th, 31st, and 33d, in the collection of miscellaneous sonnets-the sonnet on the subjuga. tion of Switzerland, page 210, or the last ode, from which I especially select the two following stanzas or paragraphs, 30 page 349 to 350.

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"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home :

Plate

And

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy!

The youth who daily further from the East
Must travel, still is nature's priest,

And by the splendid vision

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

page 352 to 354 of the same ode.

"O joy that in our embers

Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest ;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-
Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,

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Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts, before which our mortal nature

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Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised!

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us-cherish-and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence; truths that wake

To perish never :

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

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Nor man nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither;

Can in a moment travel thither

And see the children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

And since it would be unfair to conclude with an extract, which, though highly characteristic, must yet, from the nature of the thoughts and the subject, be interesting, or perhaps intelligible, to but a limited number of readers; 15 I will add, from the poet's last published work, a passage equally Wordsworthian; of the beauty of which, and of the imaginative power displayed therein, there can be but one opinion, and one feeling. See "White Doe," page 5.

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"Fast the church-yard fills;-anon
Look again and they are gone;

The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the prior's oak!
And scarcely have they disappear'd,
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard ;-
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel,
For 'tis the sun-rise of their zeal ;
And faith and hope are in their prime
In great Eliza's golden time.

A moment ends the fervent din,

And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,

The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.

When soft!the dusky trees between,

And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;

And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground;
And right across the verdant sod,
Towards the very house of God;
Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,

A solitary doe!

White she is as lily of June,

And beauteous as the silver moon

When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven!

Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away-

A glittering ship, that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.

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The following analogy will, I am apprehensive, appear 30 dim and fantastic, but in reading Bartram's Travels I could not help transcribing the following lines as a sort of allegory, or connected simile and metaphor of Wordsworth's intellect and genius." The soil is a deep, rich, dark mould, on a deep stratum of tenacious clay; and that on a foundation 35 of rocks, which often break through both strata, lifting their back above the surface. The trees which chiefly grow here are the gigantic black oak; magnolia magni-floria; fraxi