Woman's enterprise., 1922-09-01
With tranquil restoration:'

J
Mature Never Did Betray
| The heart that loved her; It's hel
privilege
Through all the years of this oul
life, to lead
From joy to JOY"
Strike our the human element from
Wordsworths poems, and they lose
their meaning. He not only painted
, nature so perfectly that he gave a
? marvelously intimate touch; to him
: nature was kind of home. There
: was no image so insignificant that it
} did not in some mood or other find its
way into his heart.
"To him the meanest flower that
blows can give
i Thoughts that do often lie too deep
for tears"
The daisy looked up to him with a
sparkling eye as an old acquaintance;
to him the small ceandine was a
kindly, unassuming spirit; the suckoo
haunted him with sounds of early
youth; the sky-lark sent messages
of madness and joy divine; and a
little thorn was weighted down with
a heap Of recollections. Wordsworth
has described all of these objects, and
many others, with sublime intensity
of feeling. He has given new
aspect to nature.
10 Wordsworth nature was almost
a religion. He saw the divine power
IN nature, the god in nature; the in
fuence of nature on daily lives for
now and evermore. He felt that ma
ture restores US after we have fought
with the world; that it leads US into
blessed mood in which we see above
ourselves; he felt that nature forti-
fies US against life. Nature was to
Wordsworth what religion is to the
devout man.
Apart from blending philosophic
ideas into his nature poems, Words
worth was true philosopher. The
greatest philosophic thought that he
gave us is expressed in his ODE, when
he told us to keep the celestial light,
the light of childhood, as the most
precious gift in life. He is often
called the poet Of childhood, because
he writes about the child and the
celestial light. He felt that if this
light could be kept burning, all life
would be happiness. He frequently
contrasts the happiness of youth with
the sadness of old age. In the ODE
he asks how We are to keep the JOY
Of childhood from vanishing, and
gives a philosophical study as seen
in this oft-quoted verse:
"Our birth is but sleep and a
forgetting;
The soul that rises with it, our
life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness, 4
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory do we
come
From God, who is our home;
Heaven lies about US in our in
fancy!' II
Not only was Wordsworth a philos-
opher, but he was a psychologist,
90. In the poem Resolution and
Independence" he analyzed his own
mental state, and in this psychologist
al study he was again seeking a pro-
ound basis for happiness. Tn
Michael we see Wordsworth again
IS great psychologist. He possess
d an unusual understanding of the
of his own mind and also
f others minds.
Wordsworth's naturally pensive dis
osition gave him an especially keen
nd sympathetic eye for the charac-
eristic miseries of rural life. I know
o poet superior to Wordsworth in
his aspect as portrayed in "Mi:haew
nd also in 'The Excursion"
Another characteristic of Words
'orth was his strong sense of the
ntique, his interest in the traditional,
lie legendary and historical. This is
Town in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets,"
I'd in his poems written during his
'ur in Scotland.
Wordsworth's style differed from
lat Of any poet who came before him.
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