"Thy father cares not for my breast,
'Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest,
'Tis all thine own!-and, if it's hue,
Be changed, that was so fair to view,
"Tis fair enough for thee, my dove!
My beauty, little child, is flown,
But thou wilt live with me in love,
And what if my poor cheek be brown?
'Tis well for me, thou can'st not see
How pale and wan it else would be."

Last, and pre-eminently I challenge for this poet the gift of IMAGINATION in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of Fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is not always graceful, and sometimes recondite. The likeness is occasionally too strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, or is such as appears the creature of predetermined research, rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed his fancy seldom displays itself, as mere and unmodified fancy. But in imaginative power, he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespear and Milton; and yet perfectly unborrowed and his own. his own words, which are at once an instance and an illustration, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects

in a kind To employ

The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration, and the poet's dream."

I shall select a few examples as most obviously manifesting this faculty; but if I should ever be fortunate enough to render my analysis. of imagination, its origin and characters thoroughly intelligible to the reader, he will scarcely open on a page of this poet's works without recognizing, more or less, the presence and the influences of this faculty.

From the poem on the Yew Trees, vol. I. page 303, 304.

"But worthier still of note

Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove :

Huge trunks!-and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved,

Not uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the prophane ;-a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes

May meet at noontide-FEAR and trembling HOPE,
SILENCE and FORESIGHT-DEATH, the skeleton,
And TIME, the shadow-there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glanamara's inmost caves."

The effect of the old man's figure in the poem of Resignation and Independence, vol. II. page 33.

"While he was talking thus, the lonely place
The old man's shape, and speech, all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,

Wandering about alone and silently."

Or the 8th, 9th, 19th, 26th, 31st, and 33d, in the collection of miscellaneous sonnets - the sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland, page 210, or the last ode from which I especially select the two following stanzas or paragraphs, page 349 to 350.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy!

The youth who daily further from the east

Must travel, still is nature's priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.”

And page 352 to 354 of the same ode.

"O joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not in deed

For that which is most worthy to be blest

Delight and liberty the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-
Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts, before which our mortal nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised!

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us-cherish-and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence; truths that wake

To perish never:

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour

Nor man nor boy

Nor all that is at enmity with joy

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither

And see the children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

And since it would be unfair to conclude with an extract, which though highly characteristic must yet from the nature of the thoughts and the subject be interesting, or perbaps intelligible, to but a limited number of readers ; I will add from the poet's last published work a passage equally Wordsworthian; of the beauty of which, and of the imaginative power displayed therein, there can be but one opinion, and one feeling. See White Doe, page 5.

"Fast the church-yard fills;-anon
Look again and they are gone;

The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the prior's oak!
And scarcely have they disappear'd
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard:-
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!