This very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation—
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I. p. 97.
We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr Wordsworth to produce anything at all parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the specimens of his friend Mr Southey. The volume ends with some sonnets, in a very different measure, of which we shall say something by and by.
The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy; but the title that attracted us most was 'an Address to the Sons of Burns, after visiting their Father's Grave.' Never was anything, however, more miserable. This is one of the four stanzas.
'Strong bodied if ye be to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if your father's wit ye share,
Then, then indeed,
Ye sons of Burns! for watchful care
There will be need.' II. p. 29.
The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called 'the Yarrow Unvisited.' The drift of it is, that the poet refused to visit this celebrated stream, because he had 'a vision of his own' about it, which the reality might perhaps undo; and, for this no less fantastical reason—
"Should life be dull, and spirits low,
'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
That earth has something yet to show,
The bonny holms of Yarrow!" II. p. 35.
After this we come to some ineffable compositions which the poet has simply entitled, 'Moods of my own Mind.' One begins—
'O Nightingale! thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart—
Thou sing'st as if the god of wine
Had help'd thee to a valentine.' II. p. 42.