﻿Wordsworth's mtnb 



21 



The sloping land recedes into the clouds. 



Displaying, on its varied side, the grace 



Of hedge-ro^Y beauties numberless, square tower, 



Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells 



Just undulates upon the listening ear. 



Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote. 



Scenes that soothed 

 Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find 

 Still soothing, and of power to charm me still. 

 And witness, dear companion of my walks. 

 Whose arm this twentieth summer I perceive 

 Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love, 

 . Confirmed by long experience of thy worth 

 And well tried virtues, could alone inspire — 

 Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long ; 

 For thou art with me here upon the banks 

 Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, 

 My dear, dear Friend ; and in thy voice I catch 

 The language of my former heart, and read 

 My former pleasures in the shooting lights 

 Of thy wild eyes — Oh yet a little while 

 May I behold in thee what I was once. 



There are many poets besides Cowper w^ho strike now and then a 

 Words^vorthian note, bnt in Cow^per there is undoubtedly a large 

 fund of poetical matter which Wordsworth assimilated and trans- 

 formed by his own experience to his own purposes. 



We have now pointed out some of the changes in Wordsworth's 

 mind relative to poetical diction and subject matter, and the rela- 

 tion of his poetry to certain verse of a somewhat similar tone in 

 the previous age. The next step in our analysis will be to note 

 turns Avhich he represents, both more clearly and more subtly than 

 the other romantic poets, in the tendencies of the whole period. 



