Not less than vernal ecstacies,
And passion’s feverish dreams.”
Temperate rejoicing,—that is the clearest note of Wordsworth’s poetry. Not an unrestrained gladness, for he can never escape from that deep, strange experience of his youth. Often, in thought, he
“Must hear Humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities.”
But even while he hears these sounds he will not be “downcast or forlorn.” He will find a deeper music to conquer these clashing discords. He will learn, and teach, a hidden joy, strong to survive amid the sorrows of a world like this. He will not look for it in some far-off unrealized Utopia,
“But in the very world which is the world