pirit. In a word,
nature must be "spiritually discerned." In "Tintern Abbey" the spiritual
appeal of nature is expressed in almost every line; but the mystic
conception of man is seen more clearly in "Intimations of Immortality,"
which Emerson calls "the high-water mark of poetry in the nineteenth
century." In this last splendid ode Wordsworth adds to his spiritual
interpretation of nature and man the alluring doctrine of preexistence,
which has appealed so powerfully to Hindoo and Greek in turn, and which
makes of human life a continuous, immortal thing, without end or beginning.

Wordsworth's longer poems, since they contain much that is prosy and
uninteresting, may well be left till after we have read the odes, sonnets,
and short descriptive poems that have made him famous. As showing a certain
heroic cast of Wordsworth's mind, it is interesting to learn that the
greater part of his work, including _The Prelude_ and _The Excursion_, was
intended for a place in a single great poem, to be called _The Recluse_,
which should treat of nature, man, and society. _The Prelude_, treating of
the growth of a poet's mind, was to introduce the work. The _Home at
Grasmere_, which is the first book of _The Recluse_, was not published till
1888, long after the poet's death. _The Excursion_ (1814) is the second
book of _The Recluse_; and the third was never completed, though Wordsworth
intended to include most of his shorter poems in this third part, and so
make an immense personal epic of a poet's life and work. It is perhaps just
as well that the work remained unfinished. The best of his work appeared in
the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798) and in the sonnets, odes, and lyrics of the
next ten years; though "The Duddon Sonnets" (1820), "To a Skylark" (1825),
and "Yarrow Revisited" (1831) show that he retained till past sixty much of
his youthful enthusiasm. In his later years, however, he perhaps wrote too
much; his poetry, like his prose, becomes dull and unimaginative; and we
miss the flashes of insight, the tender memories of childhood, and the
recurrence of noble lines--each one a poem--that constitutes the surprise
and the delight of reading Wordsworth.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart--
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and