oudepote. Kekraxomai gar,
kan me deae, di' haemeras,
eos an humon epikrataeso tou koax!
CH. Brekekekex, KO'AX, KOAX!

During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I became
acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first publication entitled
Descriptive Sketches; and seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an
original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently
announced. In the form, style, and manner of the whole poem, and in
the structure of the particular lines and periods, there is a
harshness and acerbity connected and combined with words and images
all a-glow, which might recall those products of the vegetable world,
where gorgeous blossoms rise out of a hard and thorny rind and shell,
within which the rich fruit is elaborating. The language is not only
peculiar and strong, but at times knotty and contorted, as by its own
impatient strength; while the novelty and struggling crowd of images,
acting in conjunction with the difficulties of the style, demands
always a greater closeness of attention, than poetry,--at all events,
than descriptive poetry--has a right to claim. It not seldom therefore
justified the complaint of obscurity. In the following extract I have
sometimes fancied, that I saw an emblem of the poem itself, and of the
author's genius as it was then displayed.--

'Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to hour,
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour;
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight
Dark is the region as with coming night;
Yet what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,