Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann’d,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
I quoted this after the Pansie poem to show you how much more deeply Wordsworth could touch the same subject. To him, too, the first apparition of the ideal maiden seemed angelic; like Ashe he could perceive the mingled attraction of innocence and of youth. But innocence and youth are by no means all that make up the best attributes of woman; character is more than innocence and more than youth, and it is character that Wordsworth studies. But in the last verse he tells us that the angel is always there, nevertheless, even when the good woman becomes old. The angel is the Mother-soul.
Wordsworth’s idea that character is the supreme charm was expressed very long before him by other English poets, notably by Thomas Carew.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek