Have not we too?—yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave
Recognised intelligence!
Often as thy inward ear
Catches such rebounds, beware!—
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
For of God,—of God they are."[1]
And one has almost forgotten that he was inspired when he set out. The Muse was responsible for those first delightful stanzas; Mr Wordsworth, philosophical member of the Church of England, for the three last, commendable in many ways but not as poetry, since all they say might have been expressed as well or even better in prose.
Emerson says:
"The thought, the happy image, which expressed it, and which was a true experience to the poet, recurs to the mind, and sends me back in search of the book. And I wish that the poet should foresee this habit of readers, and omit all but important passages. Shakespeare is made up of important passages, like Damascus steel made up of old nails."[2]
It would have been much better if Wordsworth had published his two stanzas and Browning his two, and omitted the rest of their poems. Why did they not?
Emerson shall tell us:
"Great design belongs to a poem and is better than any skill of execution,—but how rare! I find it in the poems of Wordsworth, Laodamia and the Ode to Dion, and the plan of The Recluse. We want design, and do not forgive
