Of all of us,—the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!”
To this quest of joy, to this proclamation of joy, he dedicates his life.
“By words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures.”
And herein he becomes a prophet to his age,—a prophet of the secret of joy, simple, universal, enduring,—the open secret.
The burden of Wordsworth’s prophecy of joy, as found in his poetry, is threefold. First, he declares with exultation that he has seen in Nature the evidence of a living spirit in vital correspondence with the spirit of man. Second, he expresses the deepest, tenderest feeling of the inestimable value of the humblest human life,—a feeling which through all its steadiness is yet strangely illumined by sudden gushes of penetration and pathos. Third, he proclaims a lofty ideal of the liberty and greatness of man, consisting in obedience to law and fidelity to duty.