Even at that early age, in the midst of all his pleasures he felt

“Gleams like the flashing of a shield;—the earth And common face of Nature spake to me Rememberable things.”

The secret of Wordsworth’s power lay in the fact that, throughout a long life, nature was to him a vital, living Presence—one capable of uplifting mankind to loftier aspirations, of teaching noble truths, and at the same time providing tranquillity and rest to the soul. As a boy he had felt for nature

“A feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm.”

But manhood brought a deeper joy.

“For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of Something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains, and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.”

In these noble lines we reach the very summit of Wordsworth’s intellectual power and poetic genius.

We must now retrace our steps to the village and find a carriage to take us on our journey. For we are not like our English friends, who are good walkers, nor do we care to emulate the pedestrian attainments of our poet, who, De Quincey thought, must have traversed a distance of one hundred and seventy-five thousand to one hundred and eighty thousand English miles. So a comfortable landau takes us on our way, skirting the upper margin of the lake, then winding along the river Brathay, pausing for a moment to view the charming little cascade of Skelwith Force, then on again until Red Bank is reached, overlooking the vale of Grasmere. The first glimpse of this placid little lake, “with its one green island,” its shores well fringed with the budding foliage of spring, the gently undulating hills forming as it were a graceful frame to the mirror of the waters, in which the reflection of the blue sky and fleecy white clouds seemed even more beautiful than their original overhead—the first glimpse could scarcely fail to arouse the emotions of the most apathetic and stir up a poetic feeling in the most unpoetic of natures.

To a mind like Wordsworth’s, such a scene was an inspiration, a revelation of Nature’s charms such as could arouse an almost ecstatic enthusiasm in the heart of one who, all his life, had lived amid scenes of beauty and possessed the eyes to see them. He came here first “a roving schoolboy,” on a “golden summer holiday,” and even then said, with a sigh,—

“What happy fortune were it here to live!”