NATUEE IN THE NATURE POETS. 
51 
But looking at the general aspect of the world — the same 
world, be it noted well — in its poetic view, how both these 
men show forth their love, their joy, their rapture ! Cowper 
expresses it both in the light and graceful lyric of which he 
is a master, and also in the statelier epic measure. Examples 
of the former are " Catharina " and " The Rose." And in 
the Task we have the following (bk. iv.) : 
The country Avins me still. 
I never framed a wish, or formed a plan, 
That flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss, 
But there I laid the scene. There early strayed .: 
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice 
Had found me, or the hope of being free. 
My very dreams were rural ; rural too 
The firstborn efforts of my youthful muse.'' 
And again (bk. i.) : 
" God made the country, and man made the town. 
What wonder, then, that health and virtue — gifts 
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught 
That life holds out to all — should most abound. 
And least be threatened, in the fields and groves?" 
Turn now to the other, seemingly of a calmer mood, only 
we must remember that it is the calmness of passion 
strongly reined, a smouldering enthusiasm that enthrals his 
being. Let me select from a great variety of communings 
with nature two poems especially, in each of which the 
natural feature which suggests the moral correlative in the 
mind of man is a river. As an instance of the happy 
marriage between thought and nature — Bacon's comrnercium 
mentis ct rerum^ though not in Bacon's sense — an instance 
of highest insight in the interpretation of nature — the same 
philosopher's man the minister and interpreter of nature — 
look at the concluding sonnets of the series on the river 
Duddon. The river rolls before his eyes into the sea, and 
