326 IS POETRY AT BOTTOM 



This is bald ; but it is not ' bald as the bare mountain-tops 

 are bald.' It is bald as a letter of introduction is bald, bald 

 as the baldest passages of Crabbe. Can we expect Italians, 

 accustomed to the grandly simple manner of Leopardi's 

 country poems, to accept this ? Or choose another example 

 from a ballad called the ' Power of Music ' : 



An Orpheus ! An Orpheus ! yes, Faith may grow bold, 

 And take to herself all the wonders of old ; 

 Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same 

 In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name. 



This is neither bald nor yet genuine ; it begins with a conceit, 

 and the epithet applied to the Pantheon is uncouth in its 

 falseness. Can we expect our American cousins to tolerate 

 the style of this opening stanza for the sake of the noble 

 democratic spirit which breathes through the poem? The 

 ' Character of the Happy Warrior ' is both conceived and 

 written in the poet's stateliest mood ; yet it halts at intervals 



on lines like these : 

 \ 



But makes his moral being his prime care .... 

 By objects, which might force the soul to abate 

 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate. 



Will Frenchmen, habituated to look for sustained evenness 

 of style in composition, recognise the 'Happy Warrior' as 

 a classic? These examples introduce a grave matter for 

 consideration. No lover of Wordsworth could desire the 

 exclusion of the ' Brothers,' or the * Power of Music,' or the 

 ' Happy Warrior,' from a selection of his poetry, however 

 willingly they might leave the 'Butterfly' alone. Yet the 

 failure of perfect art in these three fine poems must prove an 

 obstacle to their final acceptance by readers who make no 

 national, or what Mr. Arnold would call provincial, allowance 

 for Wordsworth. No such allowances are demanded by the 

 '..work of Keats or Shelley, when subjected to an equally 

 rigorous process of sifting, as that applied to Wordsworth in 

 this volume. 



Still if, after study of the greatest literatures of Europe, 



