Now (still keeping to our same subject of Contentment) let us _prosify_
the lyrical order of language down to the lowest pitch to which genius
has been able to reduce it and still make noble verse. You have all read
Wordsworth's famous Introduction to the "Lyrical Ballads," and you know
that Wordsworth's was a genius working on a theory that the languages of
verse and of prose are identical. You know, too, I dare say, into what
banalities that theory over and over again betrayed him: banalities such
as--

His widowed mother, for a second mate
Espoused the teacher of the village school:
Who on her offspring zealously bestowed
Needful instruction.

--and the rest. Nevertheless Wordsworth was a genius; and genius working
persistently on a narrow theory will now and again 'bring it off' (as
they say). So he, amid the flat waste of his later compositions, did
undoubtedly 'bring it off' in the following sonnet:--

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Ev'n rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair;
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untill'd are given,
Sound healthy children of the God of Heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin