gaze which he turns on the commonest phenomena--how subtly and
variously he shows us the soul's innate perceptions or inherited
memories as it were co-operating with Nature and "half creating" the
voice with which she speaks--all this can be learnt by attentive
study alone. Only a few scattered samples can be given here; and I
will begin with one on whose significance the poet has himself dwelt.
This is the poem called _The Leech-Gatherer_, afterwards more
formally named _Resolution and Independence_.

"I will explain to you," says Wordsworth, "in prose, my feelings in
writing that poem, I describe myself as having been exalted to the
highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of Nature; and
then as depressed, even in the midst of those beautiful objects, to
the lowest dejection and despair. A young poet in the midst of the
happiness of Nature is described as overwhelmed by the thoughts of
the miserable reverses which have befallen the happiest of all men,
viz. poets. I think of this till I am so deeply impressed with it,
that I consider the manner in which I am rescued from my dejection
and despair almost as an interposition of Providence. A person
reading the poem with feelings like mine will have been awed and
controlled, expecting something spiritual or supernatural. What is
brought forward? A lonely place, 'a pond, by which an old man
_was_, far from all house or home:' not _stood_, nor _sat_, but
_was_--the figure presented in the most naked simplicity possible.
The feeling of spirituality or supernaturalness is again referred to
as being strong in my mind in this passage. How came he here?
thought I, or what can he be doing? I then describe him, whether ill
or well is not for me to judge with perfect confidence; but this I
_can_ confidently affirm, that though I believe God has given me a
strong imagination, I cannot conceive a figure more impressive than