330 IS POETRY AT BOTTOM 



It is a pity that Wordsworth could not rest satisfied in 

 leaving this tone to its natural operation on his readers ' in a 

 wise passiveness.' He passes too readily over from the poet 

 to the moraliser, clenching lessons which need no enforcement 

 by precepts that remind us of the preacher. This leads to a 

 not unnatural movement of revolt in his audience, and often 

 spoils the severe beauty of his art. We do not care to have 

 a somewhat dull but instructive episode from ordinary village 

 life interrupted by a stanza of admonition like the following : 



Header ! had you in your mind 



Such stores as silent thought can bring, 



gentle Header ! you would find 



A tale in everything. 



What more I have to say is short, 



And you must kindly take it : 



It is no tale ; but, should you think, 



Perhaps a tale you'll make it. 



After this the real pathos of ' Simon Lee ' cannot fail to 

 fall somewhat flat. And yet it is not seldom that Words- 

 worth's didactic reflections contain the pith of his sublimes t 

 poetry. Beautiful as the tale of the ' White Doe ' is 

 aesthetically, it can bear the closing stanzas of precept : 



Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well ; 

 Small difference lies between thy creed and mine : 

 This Beast not unobserved by Nature fell ; 

 His death was mourned by sympathy divine. 



The Being, that is in the clouds and air, 

 That is in the green leaves among the groves, 

 Maintains a deep and reverential care 

 For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. 



The Pleasure-house is dust : behind, before, 

 There is no common waste, no common gloom ; 

 But Nature, in due course of time, once more 

 Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom. 



She leaves these objects to a slow decay, 

 That what we are, and have been, may be known 

 But, at the coming of the milder day, 

 These monuments shall all be overgrown. 



