Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1876-02-18
WoRDswoRrH.-Parnassus has two peaks

WoRDswoRTH.-Parnassus has two peaks
the one where inprovising poets cluster
the other where the singer of deep secrets
sits alone,-a peak yeiled sometimes from
the whole morning Of generation by earth
born mists and smoke of kitchen fires, only
to glow the more conspicuously at sunset,
and after nightfall to crown itself with i'm
perishable stars Wordsworth had that
self-trust which, in the man of genius, is
sublime, and, and in the man of talent, in
sufferable. 1t mattered not to him though
all the reviewers had been in a chorus of
laughter or conspiracy of silence behind
hun. lie went quietly over to Germany to
write more Lyrical Ballads, and to begin
poem on the growth of his own mind, at
time when there were only two men in the
world (himself and Coleridge) who Fwere
aware that be had one. or at least one any
wise differing from the mechanically uni
form ones which are stuck drearily, side by
side, In the great pin-paper of society.
Ills finest passages are always mono
logues. lie had a fondness for particulars
and there are parts of his poems which re-
mind US of local histories in the undue rela-
tive Importance given to trivial matters. He
was the historian of Wordsworthshire. 1t
was this that made him so fond of the SON
net. 1hatsequesteredn nook forced upon him
the limits which his fecundity (f may not
say his garrulity) was never self-denying
enough to impose on itself. 1t suits his soli-
tary and medltative temper, and it was there
that Lamb ian admirable Judge of what was
permanent in literature) liked him best Its
narrow bounds, but fourteen PAGES from end
to end, turn intoa virtue his too common
fault Of giving undue prominence to every
passing emotion. lie excels in monol0gue,
and the law of the sonnet tempers mono
logue with mercy. In - The Excursion We
are driven to the subterfuge of verdict Of
extenuating circumstances. His mind had
not that reach and elemental movement of
Milton's, which, like the trade-wind. gath
cred to itself thoughts and images, like state
ly fleets, from every quarter some deep
with silks and spicery, some brooding over
the silent thunders OF their ba:talious arms-
ment,-but all swept forward in their des-
tined track, over the long billOws Of his
verse, every inch Of canvas strained BY the
yiyifying breath Of their common epic i'm
pulse. Ii was an organ that Milton master
ed, mighty in compass, capable equally of
the trumpet ardors or the slimNielicacy of
the flute and sometimes it bursts forth in
great crashes through his prose, as if he
touched it for solace in the intervals of his
toll. If Wordsworth sometimes put the
trumpet to his lips, yet he lays it aside soon,
and Willingly, for his appropriate instru-
mend, the pastoral reed. And it is not one |
that grew by any sluggish stream, but that
which Apollo breatned through, tending the |
fiocks OF Admetus that which Pan en-
dowed with every melody of the universe
the same in which the soul of the despairing |
nymph took refuge and gifted with her dual
natures that, ever and anon, amid the |
human JOY or sorrow, there comes suddenly |
a deeper and almost awful tone, thrilling Us
with dim consciousness Of forgotten dyini- !
ty.
OF no other poet except Shakespeare have |
50 many phrases become household words as
If Pope has made current
more epigrams Of worldly wisdom, 10 W ords- !
worth belongs the nobler praise Of having |
defined for u, and given Us for daily pos
session, the faint and vague suggestions Of |
other worldliuess, Of whose gentler minis
try with cur baser nature the hurry and bus |
tie Of life scarcely ever allowed us TO be |
conscious. lie has won for himself a secure
immortality by a depth of intuition which
makes only the best minds, at their best
hours. worthy, or indeed capable of his
and by homely sincerity
Of human sympathy which reaches the hum
blest heart. Our language owes him graft
tude for the habitual purity and abstinence
OF his style and We who speak it, for hay-
ing emboldened Us to take delight in simple
things, and to trust ourselves to our own in
: stincts.-JaHes RusseU LoueH.