Flaunting summer, when he throws
His soul into the briar-rose,--

or the melancholy stillness of the declining year,--

Where floats
O'er twilight fields the autumnal gossamer;

or--as in the words which to the sensitive Charles Lamb seemed too
terrible for art--the irresponsive blankness of the universe--

The broad open eye of the solitary sky--

beneath which mortal hearts must make what merriment they may.

Or take those typical stanzas in _Peter Bell_, which so long were
accounted among Wordsworth's leading absurdities.

In vain through, every changeful year
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

In vain, through water, earth, and air,
The soul of happy sound was spread,
When Peter, on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thorn.
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.