222 INDOOK STUDIES 



not relieve, but rather sets off, his loneliness. He 

 is encompassed with solitude wherever he goes : — 



" In November days, 

 When vapors rolling down the valley make 

 A lonely scene more lonesome ; among woods 

 At noon ; and mid the calm of summer nights, 

 "When by the margin of the trembling lake, 

 Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went 

 In solitude;" 



and has the same sweet and fruitful fellowship 



with nature and with his own heart. In his "A 



Poet's Epitaph " he has drawn his own portrait: — 



" He is retired as noontide dew, 



Or fountain in a noonday grove; 

 And you must love him, ere to you 

 He will seem worthy of your love. 



" The outward shows of sky and earth. 

 Of hill and valley, he has viewed; 

 And impulses of deeper birth 

 Have come to him in solitude. 



" In common things that round us lie 

 Some random truths he can impart, — 

 The harvest of a quiet eye 

 That broods and sleeps on his own heart." 



Wordsworth was solitary because of his profound 

 seriousness, and because great thoughts or deep emo- 

 tions always create a solitude of their own. What 

 is communing with nature but communing with 

 ourselves? Nature gives back our thoughts and 

 feelings, as we see our faces reflected in a pool. 

 Wordsworth found himself whenever he walked; 

 all nature was Wordsworthian. Another man of 

 equal profundity and sympathy finds nature stamped 

 with his image. 



