Men have found such a response to their lightest as well as their deepest feelings, such beautiful morality with such lucid philosophy, that every thinking mind has, consciously or unconsciously, appropriated something from Wordsworth. Those who have never read his poems have imbibed some part of their spirit from the public or private discourse of his happy pupils; and it is, as yet, impossible to estimate duly the effect which the balm of his meditations has had in allaying the fever of the public heart, as exhibited in the writings of Byron and Shelley.
But, as I said before, he is not for youth, he is too tranquil. His early years were passed in listening to, his mature years in interpreting, the oracles of Nature; and though in pity and in love he sympathizes with the conflicts of life, it is not by mingling his tears with the sufferer’s, but by the consolations of patient faith, that he would heal their griefs.
The sonnet on Tranquillity, to be found in the present little volume, exhibits him true to his old love and natural religion.
“Tranquillity! the solemn aim wert thou
In heathen schools of philosophic lore;
Heart-stricken by stern destiny of yore,
The tragic muse thee served with thoughtful vow;
And what of hope Elysium could allow
Was fondly seized by Sculpture, to restore
Peace to the mourner’s soul; but he who wore
The crown of thorns around his bleeding brow,
Warmed our sad being with his glorious light;
Then arts which still had drawn a softening grace
From shadowy fountains of the Infinite,
Communed with that idea face to face;
And move around it now as planets run,
Each in its orbit round the central sun.”
The doctrine of tranquillity does not suit the impetuous blood of the young, yet some there are, who, with pulses of temperate and even though warm and lively beat, are able to prize such
