128 Shakspeare 



in his pensive moods of reverie, to weave webs 

 of similes, to moralize, to joy or sorrow, to find 

 spiritual meanings, to devise prettinesses of im- 

 agination and words : not he created to express 

 nature simply and singly as its living organ, with- 

 out bias or distortion by any self-conscious intru- 

 sion of self.* In Wordsworth's poems, therefore, 

 inquisitive poet of nature as he was, the admiring 

 reader reflects sympathetically the feeling he feels, 

 its individual specialization, rather than the deeper 

 unity of self and nature to which Shakspeare gives 

 full, direct, melodious utterance ; enjoys nature 

 partially and indirectly, as translated through the 

 poet's well-woven thoughts and self- watched, self- 

 fondled feelings of it. 



That Shakspeare was likewise a close and sym- 

 pathetic observer of human nature needs no saying 

 — in such intimate sympathy with all its moods 

 and tenses in its procession through time that the 

 generic quality of humanity, the spirit of its being, 

 is displayed by him in the characters and events 

 of imaginative drama more essentially and truly 



* Oft do I sit by thee at ease, 

 And weave a web of similes. — 



Ode to the Daisy. 



Again, in Poems of the Imagination, speaking of the daffodils : 

 For oft when on my couch I lie 

 In vacant or in pensive mood, 

 They flash upon that inward eye 

 Which is the joy of solitude ; 

 And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

 And dances with the daffodils. 



