WORDSWORTH'S POETRY [Footnote: Delivered extempore at Manchester.]
The history of the poetry of Wordsworth is a true reflex of the man
himself. The life of Wordsworth was not outwardly eventful, but his
inner life was full of conflict, discovery, and progress. His outward
life seems to have been so ordered by Providence as to favour the
development of the poetic life within. Educated in the country, and
spending most of his life in the society of nature, he was not subjected
to those violent external changes which have been the lot of some poets.
Perfectly fitted as he was to cope with the world, and to fight his way
to any desired position, he chose to retire from it, and in solitude to
work out what appeared to him to be the true destiny of his life.
The very element in which the mind of Wordsworth lived and moved was a
Christian pantheism. Allow me to explain the word. The poets of the Old
Testament speak of everything as being the work of God's hand:--We are
the "work of his hand;" "The world was made by him." But in the New
Testament there is a higher form used to express the relation in which
we stand to him--"We are his offspring;" not the work of his hand, but
the children that came forth from his heart.
Pages:
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310