﻿44 



IXDIAXA rXIVERSITY STUDIES 



recognitions in created images, that is, 



In sens-e concliictiug- to ideal form. 

 Id soul of more tlian mortal privilege. 



Tims this Infinite Mind is, in a very real way. the ideal type of the 

 poetic mind Avhich strives through ideal forms to transcend mortal 

 privilege. 



One function, above all. of such a mind 



Had Nature shadowed there, by putting- forth. 



'Mid circumstances awful and sublime. 



That nmtual domination which she loves 



To exert upon the face of outward things. 



So moulded, .joined, abstracted, so endowed 



With interchangeable supremacy. 



That men. least sensitive, see. hear, perceive, 



And cannot choose but feel. The jiower. which all 



AcknoA-\-ledge wlien thus movcnl. which Nature thus 



To bodily sense exhibits, is the express 



Eesemblance of that glorious faculty 



That higher minds bear with them as their own. 



This is the very spirit in which they deal 



With the whole compass of the universe : 



They from their native selves can send aln-oad 



Kindred nmtatioi.s : for themselves create 



A like existence ; and. whene'er it dawns 



Created for them, catch it. or are caught 



By its inevitable mastery. 



Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound 



Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres. 



This is the greatest function of the poet, to make this objectively 

 clear, so that it can be seen, heard, felt. It is what nature herself 

 is doing for those who can perceive it directly with their senses : 

 and the poet, who can lead mankind to a closer sensation of it, may 

 therefore 'become a power like one of Nature "s." 



Wordsworth's pantheism is thus seen to be part of his own 

 character as a poet, likewise an explanation of the beauty of the 

 world, and finally and always a theory of art. So that in the end 

 the question he asks of nature is the eternal question of the artist, 

 the question that saves antiquity for us and makes the past indis- 

 pensable : What images has nature to make clear the meanings of 

 the soul, not alone the soul of man, but the Infinite Soul of which 

 that is a part ? ' The Prelude ' is Wordsworth 's answer to this 

 question. In many respects it is the answer that Goethe makes in 

 'Faust.' that Spinoza makes in his 'Ethics." that every great phil- 



