Read it as such. Read it simply for the story. It is very important
at this critical stage that you should not embarrass your mind with
preoccupations as to the _form_ in which Wordsworth has told his
story. Wordsworth's object was to tell a story as well as he could:
just that. In reading aloud do not pay any more attention to the metre
than you feel naturally inclined to pay. After a few lines the metre
will present itself to you. Do not worry as to what kind of metre it
is. When you have finished the perusal, examine your sensations....

Your sensations after reading this poem, and perhaps one or two other
narrative poems of Wordsworth, such as _Michael_, will be different
from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, or even a
very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be so sharp, so
clear and piquant, but they will probably be, in their mysteriousness
and their vagueness, more impressive. I do not say that they will be
diverting. I do not go so far as to say that they will strike you as
pleasing sensations. (Be it remembered that I am addressing myself
to an imaginary tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being
"disturbing." Well, to disturb the spirit is one of the greatest aims
of art. And a disturbance of spirit is one of the finest pleasures
that a highly-organised man can enjoy. But this truth can only be
really learnt by the repetitions of experience. As an aid to the more
exhaustive examination of your feelings under Wordsworth, in order
that you may better understand what he was trying to effect in you,
and the means which he employed, I must direct you to Wordsworth
himself. Wordsworth, in addition to being a poet, was unsurpassed as a
critic of poetry. What Hazlitt does for poetry in the way of creating
enthusiasm Wordsworth does in the way of philosophic explanation. And
Wordsworth's explanations of the theory and practice of poetry are
written for the plain man. They pass the comprehension of nobody, and