cannot really love Wordsworth; nor can to them "the simplest flower" bring "thoughts that lie too deep for tears." Happy his pupils; they are gentle, they are calm, and they must always be progressing in our knowledge; for, to a mind which can sympathize with his, no hour, no scene can possibly be barren.

The contents of the lately published little volume* accord perfectly, in essentials, with those of the preceding four. The sonnets are like those he has previously written-equally unfinished as sonnets, equally full of meaning as poems. If it be the case with all his poems, that scarcely one forms a perfect whole by itself, but is valuable as a leaf out of his mind, it is peculiarly so with his sonnets. I presume he only makes use of this difficult mode of writing because it is a concise one for the expression of a single thought or a single mood. I know not that one of his sonnets is polished and wrought to a point, as this most artistical of all poems should be; but neither do I know one which does not contain something we would not willingly lose. As the beautiful sonnet which I shall give presently, whose import is so wide and yet so easily understood, contains in the motto, what Messer Petrarca would have said in the two concluding lines.

(Miss not the occasion; by the forelock take
That subtle power, the never-halting time,
Lest a mere moment's putting off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime)—
"Wait, prithee, wait! this answer Lesbia threw
Forth to her dove, and took no further heed;
Her eyes were busy, while her fingers flew

Across the harp, with soul-engrossing speed;
But from that bondage when her thoughts were freed,
She rose, and toward the shut casement drew,
Whence the poor, unregarded favourite, true
To old affections, had been heard to plead
With flapping wing for entrance--What a shriek

* Yarrow Revisited, and other poems.

Forced from that voice so lately tuned to a strain

Of harmony!--a shriek of terror, pain,

And self-reproach!-for from aloft a kite

Pounced, and the dove, which from its ruthless beak

She could not rescue, perished in her sight!"

Even the Sonnet upon Sonnets, so perfect in the details, is not perfect as a whole.

However, I am not so fastidious as some persons about the dress of a thought. These sonnets are so replete with sweetness and spirit, that we can excuse their want of symmetry; and probably should not feel it, except from comparison with more highly-finished works of the same kind. One more let me extract, which should be laid to heart:

"Desponding father! mark this altered bough
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossom shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
invisible! yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life; a stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings that for thanks shall call;
In all men sinful is it to be slow

To hope-in parents sinful above all."

"Yarrow Revisited" is a beautiful reverie. It ought to be read

as such, for it has no determined aim.

These are fine verses.

"And what for this frail world were all

That mortals do or suffer,

Did no responsive harp, no pen,

Memorial tribute offer?

Yea, what were mighty Nature's self?

Her features, could they win us,

Unhelped by the poetic voice

That hourly speaks within us?

"Nor deem that localized romance

Plays false with our affections;
Unsanctifies our tears-made sport
For fanciful dejections;

Ah, no! the visions of the past
Sustain the heart in feeling
Life as she is our changeful life,
With friends and kindred dealing."

and this stanza,

"Eternal blessings on the Muse,

And her divine employment!

The blameless Muse, who trains her sons
For hope and calm enjoyment;

Albeit sickness, lingering yet,

Has o'er their pillow brooded;

And care waylay their steps-a sprite

Not easily eluded."

reminds us of what Scott says in his farewell to the Harp of the North:

"Much have I owed thy strains, on life's long way,

Through secret woes the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawned wearier day,
And bitter was the grief devoured alone,

That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress, is thine own."

"The Egyptian Maid" is distinguished by a soft visionary style of painting, and a stealthy alluring movement, like the rippling of advancing waters, which, I do not remember elsewhere in Wordsworth's writings.

"The Armenian Lady's love" is a fine balled. The following verses are admirable for delicacy of sentiment and musical sweet

Foes might hang upon their path, snakes rustle near,
But nothing from their inward selves had they to fear.

"Thought infirm ne'er came between them,
Whether printing desert sands
With accordant steps, or gathering

Forest fruit with social hands;

Or whispering like two reeds that in the cold moonbeam
Bend with the breeze their heads beside a crystal stream."

The Evening Voluntaries are very beautiful in manner, and full of suggestions. The second is worth extracting as a forcible exhibition of one of Wordsworth's leading opinions.

"Not in the lucid intervals of life

That come but as a curse to party strife;
Not in some hour when pleasure with a sigh

Of languor, puts his rosy garland by;

Not in the breathing times of that poor slave

Who daily piles up wealth in Mammon's cave,

Is nature felt, or can be; nor do words

Which practised talent readily affords

Prove that her hands have touched responsive chords.

Nor has her gentle beauty power to move

With genuine rapture and with fervent love

The soul of genius, if he dares to take

Life's rule from passion craved for passion's sake,
Untaught that meekness is the cherished bent

Of all the truly great and all the innocent;
But who is innocent? By grace divine,
Not otherwise, O Nature! we are thine,
Through good and evil thine, or just degree
Of rational and manly sympathy,

To all that earth from pensive hearts is stealing,
And heaven is now to gladdened eyes revealing;
Add every charm the universe can show
Through every change its aspects undergo,
Care may be respited, but not repealed;
No perfect cure grows on that bounded field,

Vain is the pleasure, a false calm the peace,
If he through whom alone our conflicts cease,
Our virtuous hopes without relapse advance,
Come not to speed the soul's deliverance;
To the distempered intellect refuse

His gracious help, or give what we abuse."

But nothing in this volume better deserves attention than "Lines suggested by a Portrait from the pencil of F. Stone," and "Stanzas on the Power of Sound." The first for a refinement and justness of thought rarely surpassed, and the second for a lyric flow, a swelling inspiration, and a width of range, which Wordsworth has never equalled, except in the "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," and the noble ode, or rather hymn, to Duty. It should be read entire, and I shall not quote a line. By a singular naiveté the poet has prefixed to these stanzas a table of contents. This distrust of his reader seems to prove that he had risen above his usual level.

What more to the purpose can we say about Wordsworth, except—read him. Like his beloved Nature, to be known he must be loved. His thoughts may be transfused, but never adequately interpreted. Verily,

"To paint his being to a grovelling mind,

Were like describing pictures to the blind.

But no one, in whose bosom there yet lives a spark of nature or feeling, need despair of some time sympathizing with him; since one of the most brilliantly factitious writers of the day, one I should have singled out as seven-fold shielded against his gentle influence, has paid him so feeling a tribute:

"How must thy lone and lofty soul have gone
Exulting on its way, beyond the loud
Self-taunting mockery of the scoffers grown
Tethered and dulled to Nature, in the crowd!
Earth has no nobler, no more moral sight
Than a Great Poet, whom the world disowns,