like simplicity of treatment, and it contains a few memorable phrases. The secondary title has little to do with the theme.

THE RECLUSE

Pp. 387 f. The Recluse is a part of a great philosophical poem upon which Wordsworth worked at intervals for many years but which he never completed. The extract here given expresses in poetic forms his plans and aspirations as a poet.

By some oversight the lines of our selection were numbered without reference to their position in the poem; they come at the very end and the first line should be 1. 754.

TO THE CUCKOO

Pp. 388 f. In beauty of conception and magic of phrasing few poems surpass or even equal this. It is very simple in subject and structure and needs only to be read thoughtfully and sympathetically to be fully understood. Its theme is the emotions of wonder and delight the author feels in hearing again the song of the bird and recalling the sensations with which it had been heard in boyhood. All poets are perhaps endowed with keener memories of past sensations than ordinary people. How large a part such memories played in Wordsworth's life may be noted not only in The Prelude, The Recluse, and The Excursion, but in many occasional poems such as this and the Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey. Even details, such as the peculiarity of the cuckoo's song referred to in ll. 3-4, 7-8, 15-16, and 29-32, are recalled more than once (cf. The Reciuse, ll. 90-94).

"Where'er my footsteps turned,

Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang.
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Of fragrance independent of the wind."

THE SOLITARY REAPER

P. 389. This poem was suggested by the following words in Thomas Wilkinson's Tour in Scotland: "Passed a female who was reaping alone; she sung in Erse, as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard; her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious long after they were heard no more." Again, as in the poem To the Cuckoo, we have the witchery of music and mystery wonderfully rendered by the art of the poet. And here in addition we have a picture sketched without detail yet as

Pp. 391 ff. Although this poem has long been a favorite of lovers of Wordsworth and though no one can deny the beauty of it, some of the Orthodox have objected to the doctrine that souls have a conscious existence in another world before being united with the body in this. Wordsworth himself is careful to disclaim this doctrine as a creed and to insist only upon his right to treat it poetically. It seems clear, however, that the doctrine made a powerful appeal to his imagination and affections. The beauty of the poem, both in parts and as a whole, will be felt by every reader, but as the exact relation of some of the parts to the general theme seems to have been missed by some, it may be well to give a closer analysis than usual of the course of thought.

I, II. Even though the poet sees and feels the beauty of the earth, he misses in it a glory it once possessed.

III, IV. While birds and beasts are full of joy, he alone feels sad, but utterance gives relief and he determines to share in the general joy and enumerates the sources of pleasure. But in vain, for the sight of a tree, a field, a flower, recalls thoughts of "the glory and the dream" that are gone and makes him ask what has become of them.

V, VI, VII, VIII. He expounds the theory. that the new-born soul coming to earth from heaven brings a part of the glory of heaven with it and envelops in it all the sights and sounds of earth, but loses it as it journeys through the world. The whole theory is explicitly stated in V. The efforts of Earth to win her foster-child Man to love her alone are given in VI. The earthly attractions and interests that successively capture his heart and fill his life are set forth in VII. "Why, O Child, do you — endowed as you are with heavenly knowledge and glory strive to become the slave of Earth?" is the substance of VIII.

IX. The poet utters thanks for the indestructible traces of our heavenly origin.

history, was born in Haiti in 1743. Although a slave, he received an elementary education and attained prominence. He took part in the revolutions of 1791-94 and in the latter year became commander-in-chief; in 1801 he was made president for life with the power of nominating his successor. After a series of battles with the French forces sent by Bonaparte, he capitulated and was pardoned (May 1, 1802), but the next month he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy, sent to France, and imprisoned in the Castle of Joux, where he died in April, 1803. Wordsworth wrote this sonnet in August, 1802. Toussaint was notable for his protection of the whites and his attempts to give the negroes liberty and a stable organization of industry.

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGA

TION OF SWITZERLAND

Cf. Byron's Ode, especially section IV (pp. 455 ff.).

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

P. 395. This is a passionate outcry against the absorption of men in worldly business and their lack of interest in Nature and its inspiring influences. The poet declares that, rather than be so absorbed, he would prefer even to be a pagan, that thus imagination might at times give him glimpses of the gods of nature, such as Proteus and Triton -gods of the sea.

TO SLEEP

Cf. the sonnets of Daniel (p. 147) and Keats (p. 478).

SCORN NOT THE SONNET

P. 396. Cf. Rossetti's sonnet on the sonnet (p. 630). Dante, Petrarch and Tasso were Italian writers who cultivated the sonnet; Camoëns was a Portuguese.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

Pp. 396 ff. In his Biographia Literaria Coleridge gives an interesting account of his literary career and opinions. Chapter XIV is especially valuable for its relation of the origin of the Lyrical Ballads, the joint volume in which he and Wordsworth gave to the world the first proofs of their

great poetic powers, and also for its exposition of Coleridge's theory of poetry. It should be read in connection with Wordsworth's Preface. Characteristically, Coleridge is concerned, not with the external form, but with the nature of poetry.

Bathyllus and Alexis (p. 398 b) are revolting subjects. Petronius Arbiter (p. 399 a) was a Roman author of the time of Nero; he was renowned for his wit and his taste. Bishop Taylor (ibid.) is Jeremy Taylor, the celebrated pulpit orator; for an example of his poetic prose, see pp. 216 f. Thomas Burnet (1635?-1715), an English scholar, wrote a Sacred Theory of the Earth (Telluris Theoria Sacra) in Latin, in which he argued eloquently that the earth was originally constructed like an egg and that at the Flood the shell broke and let out the inner fluid and that the mountains are fragments of the shell.

KUBLA KHAN

Pp. 399 f. This poem, Coleridge tells us, he composed in a dream, when he had dropped asleep while reading a passage in Purchas his Pilgrimage. The passage is as follows: "In Xaindu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightful Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure." He goes on to say that he "continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment, he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the restoration of the latter."

The lines from Purchas seem indeed inadequate to the result, but great transformations are possible to dreamers and poets. Whether Coleridge, in writing down his dream poem, merely transcribed what he could remember, or recomposed it, may perhaps be doubted. He calls it a fragment, but it has unity and even a certain completeness. If he merely transcribed his memories, he apparently recalled the dream lines without a break or omission. Undoubtedly a continuation of the poem is conceivable, in which case the continuation would doubtless consist of a romantic narrative set against the background of these introductory lines.

The poem, as we have it, is a remarkable example of romantic description. The mysterious Kubla Khan, the sacred river, the measureless caverns, the sunless sea, the ancient forests, the sunny spots of greenery, the cedarn cover, the savage place, holy but enchanted, and many other details which will at once impress the reader, contribute to the establishment of an atmosphere of mystery and charm. The presence of caves of ice seems to have troubled some of the critics, who even go so far as to suggest that the poet may have thought of marble or alabaster. But there can be no doubt that he was really thinking of caves of ice, and that he did not regard them as poetically impossible in such a landscape (cf. ll. 35, 36). Other critics have been disturbed by the introduction of an Abyssinian maid in connection with a scene in Tartary. But Coleridge does not connect the Abyssinian maid, who belongs to another vision, with the Tartar landscape, except as he might connect any other recollection with it. In this last stanza of the poem, he is concerned entirely with the possibility of the poet's rebuilding with his music the beauties of the stately pleasure dome. This he says he might accomplish if he could revive within him the symphony and song which he once heard in a dream. To produce such an effect the music must obviously be wild and exotic, and the poet has therefore chosen as the musical instrument the dulcimer, which, though he probably had only a vague idea of it, suggests by its very name infinite and mysterious possibilities. That the player was an Abyssinian maid and that she sang of Mount Abora may possibly be due to the poet's vague recollections of other passages in Purchas. But the matter of real importance to the poet and the reader is that Abyssinia and Mount Abora are poetic words of vague connotation which suit the general atmosphere of the poem. For both poet and reader the poem is merely

an effort to reproduce in verse a vision of sensuous and mysterious beauty, and anything which interferes with the reader's emotional response to it is not only superfluous, but injurious.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

Pp. 400 ff. This is also a poem which depends for its effect mainly upon the creation of an atmosphere of mystery. It deals with the supernatural, though it owes much of its power to its descriptions of the effects of the supernatural upon man and nature. It contains few difficulties. In the second edition of it, the poet added to it an outline of the narrative, printed in the margin. The purpose of this addition was probably not to aid the reader in understanding the story, but to increase the strangeness and weirdness of the poem. The archaic diction and syntax contribute to the same effect: cf. may'st, 1. 8, din, 1. 8, eftsoons, l. 12, kirk, 1. 23, bassoon, 1. 32, sheen, l. 56, swound, 1. 62, thorough, l. 64, I wist, l. 152, Gramercy, l. 164, gossameres, l. 184, quoth, l. 198, Notice also the effect of the repetition of words and lines.

etc.

CHRISTABEL