he exclaims—
“Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad,
And see to what fair countries ye are bound!”
In his latest phase, as seen in the two poems of 1831, quoted above, the moral has so overpowered the naturalistic mood that this spiritualizing of all Nature into symbols of things unseen is rather obviously obtruded than delicately hinted. However this may be, to do this, to treat Nature in this way, so to interpret it that it shall touch the moral heart of the most thoughtful and apprehensive men—this is one of the two highest functions of inspired Poetry. And in the exercise of this function, too, Wordsworth has taught us much.
It would be interesting to continue this investigation, and to trace the different phases of the great movement towards Nature, as it manifests itself in the poets who were Wordsworth’s contemporaries, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Scott, and Keble; and in the poets of the present generation, and in other writers still living, who in prose works have treated of æsthetics. But to do so would require at least another volume. With Wordsworth, however, as the great leader of that movement, one may, with propriety, pause for the present. For however various and interesting have been the aspects of Nature that have been presented by his contemporaries, or by more recent poets, none of them has rendered those aspects he has essayed more truly, broadly, and penetratingly. And Wordsworth alone, adding the philosopher to the poet, has speculated widely and deeply on the relation in which Nature stands, to the soul of man, and on the truths suggested by this relation. In that relation, and along the lines of thought that radiate from it, is to be found the true interpretation of Nature—that interpretation which man still craves, after Science has said its last word. This interpretation, however, is a truth which can only be apprehended by the moral imagination, that is, the imagination filled with moral light, and which will commend itself only to the most thoughtful men in their most feeling moods. It is not likely ever to be vindicated by logical processes, or tabulated in scientific registers. Not the less for that is it a vital truth, attesting itself, as all vital truths do, by the harmony it brings into all our thoughts—by the response it finds in the inner man.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Quarterly Review, October, 1870, pp. 143, 144.
[2] Wordsworth, Preface to Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads.
[3] Myosotis Alpestris.
[4] S. T. Coleridge, Lit. Biog. vol. ii. p. 23.