V
But there is one still deeper element in Wordsworth’s poetry. He tells us very clearly that the true liberty and grandeur of mankind are to be found along the line of obedience to law and fidelity to duty. This is the truth which was revealed to him, slowly and serenely, as a consolation for the loss of his brief revolutionary dream. He learned to rejoice in it more and more deeply, and to proclaim it more and more clearly, as his manhood settled into firmness and strength.
Fixing his attention at first upon the humblest examples of the power of the human heart to resist unfriendly circumstances, as in Resolution and Independence, and to endure sufferings and trials, as in Margaret and Michael, he grew into a new conception of the right nobility. He saw that it was not necessary to make a great overturning of society before the individual man could begin to fulfil his destiny. “What then remains?” he cries—
“To seek
Those helps for his occasion ever near
Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed
On the first motion of a holy thought;
Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer—
A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart,
Issuing however feebly, nowhere flows
Without access of unexpected strength.
But, above all, the victory is sure
For him, who seeking faith by virtue, strives
To yield entire submission to the law
Of conscience—conscience reverenced and obeyed,
As God’s most intimate presence in the soul,
And his most perfect image in the world.”
If we would hear this message breathed in tones of lyric sweetness, as to the notes of a silver harp, we may turn to Wordsworth’s poems on the Skylark,—
“Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.”
If we would hear it proclaimed with grandeur, as by a solemn organ; or with martial ardour, as by a ringing trumpet, we may read the Ode to Duty or The Character of the Happy Warrior, two of the noblest and most weighty poems that Wordsworth ever wrote. There is a certain distinction and elevation about his moral feelings which makes them in themselves poetic. In his poetry beauty is goodness and goodness is beauty.
But I think it is in the Sonnets that this element of Wordsworth’s poetry finds the broadest and most perfect expression. For here he sweeps upward from the thought of the freedom and greatness of the individual man to the vision of nations and races emancipated and ennobled by loyalty to the right. How pregnant and powerful are his phrases! “Plain living and high thinking.” “The homely beauty of the good old cause.” “A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.” “Man’s unconquerable mind.” “By the soul only, the Nations shall be great and free.” The whole series of Sonnets addressed to Liberty, published in 1807, is full of poetic and prophetic fire. But none among them burns with a clearer light, none is more characteristic of him at his best, than that which is entitled London, 1802.
“Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up; return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou had’st a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.”
This sonnet embraces within its “scanty plot of ground” the roots of Wordsworth’s strength. Here is his view of nature in the kinship between the lonely star and the solitary soul. Here is his recognition of life’s common way as the path of honour, and of the lowliest duties as the highest. Here is his message that manners and virtue must go before freedom and power. And here is the deep spring and motive of all his work, in the thought that joy, inward happiness, is the dower that has been lost and must be regained.
Here then I conclude this chapter on Wordsworth. There are other things that might well be said about him, indeed that would need to be said if this were intended for a complete estimate of his influence. I should wish to speak of the deep effect which his poetry has had upon the style of other poets, breaking the bondage of “poetic diction” and leading the way to a simpler and more natural utterance. I should need to touch upon his alleged betrayal of his early revolutionary principles in politics, and to show, (if a paradox may be pardoned), that he never had them and that he always kept them. He never forsook liberty; he only changed his conception of it. He saw that the reconstruction of society must be preceded by reconstruction of the individual. Browning’s stirring lyric, The Lost Leader,—
“Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,”—
may have been written with Wordsworth in mind, but it was a singularly infelicitous suggestion of a remarkably good poem.
All of these additions would be necessary if this estimate were intended to be complete. But it is not, and so let it stand.
If we were to choose a motto for Wordsworth’s poetry it might be this: “Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice.” And if we looked farther for a watchword, we might take it from that other great poet, Isaiah, standing between the fierce radicals and sullen conservatives of Israel, and saying,
“In quietness and confidence shall be your strength,
In rest and in returning ye shall be saved.”
“THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT”
ROBERT BROWNING’S POETRY
There is a striking contrast between the poetry of Browning and the poetry of Wordsworth; and this comes naturally from the difference between the two men in genius, temperament and life. I want to trace carefully and perhaps more clearly some of the lines of that difference. I do not propose to ask which of them ranks higher as poet. That seems to me a futile question. The contrast in kind interests me more than the comparison of degree. And this contrast, I think, can best be felt and understood through a closer knowledge of the central theme of each of the two poets.
Wordsworth is a poet of recovered joy. He brings consolation and refreshment to the heart,—consolation which is passive strength, refreshment which is peaceful energy. His poetry is addressed not to crowds, but to men standing alone, and feeling their loneliness most deeply when the crowd presses most tumultuously about them. He speaks to us one by one, distracted by the very excess of life, separated from humanity by the multitude of men, dazzled by the shifting variety of hues into which the eternal light is broken by the prism of the world,—one by one he accosts us, and leads us gently back, if we will follow him, into a more tranquil region and a serener air. There we find the repose of “a heart at leisure from itself.” There we feel the unity of man and nature, and of both in God. There we catch sight of those eternal stars of truth whose shining, though sometimes hidden, is never dimmed by the cloud-confusions of morality. Such is the mission of Wordsworth to the age. Matthew Arnold has described it with profound beauty.
“He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round,
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease,
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o’er the sun-lit fields again:
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth returned; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furled,
The freshness of the early world.”
But precious as such a service is and ever must be, it does not fill the whole need of man’s heart. There are times and moods in which it seems pale and ineffectual. The very contrast between its serenity, its assurance, its disembodied passion, its radiant asceticism, and the mixed lights, the broken music, the fluctuating faith, the confused conflict of actual life, seems like a discouragement. It calls us to go into a retreat, that we may find ourselves and renew our power to live. But there are natures which do not easily adapt themselves to a retreat,—natures which crave stimulus more than consolation, and look for a solution of life’s problem that can be worked out while they are in motion. They do not wish, perhaps they are not able, to withdraw themselves from active life even for the sake of seeing it more clearly.
Wordsworth’s world seems to them too bare, too still, too monotonous. The rugged and unpopulous mountains, the lonely lakes, the secluded vales, do not attract them as much as the fertile plain with its luxuriant vegetation, the whirling city, the crowded highways of trade and pleasure. Simplicity is strange to them; complexity is their native element. They want music, but they want it to go with them in the march, the parade, the festal procession. The poet for them must be in the world, though he need not be altogether of it. He must speak of the rich and varied life of man as one who knows its artificial as well as its natural elements,—palaces as well as cottages, courts as well as sheep-folds. Art and politics and literature and science and churchmanship and society,—all must be familiar to him, material to his art, significant to his interpretation. His message must be modern and militant. He must not disregard doubt and rebellion and discord, but take them into his poetry and transform them. He must front
“The cloud of mortal destiny,”
and make the most of the light that breaks through it. Such a poet is Robert Browning; and his poetry is the direct answer to at least one side of the modern Zeitgeist, restless, curious, self-conscious, energetic, the active, questioning spirit.