to apologise for it, in the memorable confession,

'But who is innocent? By grace divine,
Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine.'[272]

[272] 'Evening Voluntary.'

It was to Nature as first created, not to Nature as corrupted by
'disnatured' passions, that his song had attributed such high and
healing powers. In singing her praise he had chosen a theme loftier than
most of his readers knew--loftier, as he perhaps eventually discovered,
than he had at first supposed it to be. Utterly without Shakspeare's
dramatic faculty, he was richer and wider in the humanities than any
poet since Shakspeare. Wholly unlike Milton in character and in
opinions, he abounds in passages to be paralleled only by Milton in
solemn and spiritual sublimity, and not even by Milton in pathos. It was
plain to those who knew Wordsworth that he had kept his great gift pure,
and used it honestly and thoroughly for that purpose for which it had
been bestowed. He had ever written with a conscientious reverence for
that gift; but he had also written spontaneously. He had composed with
care--not the exaggerated solicitude which is prompted by vanity, and
which frets itself to unite incompatible excellences; but the diligence
which shrinks from no toil while eradicating blemishes that confuse a
poem's meaning, and frustrate its purpose. He regarded poetry as an art;
but he also regarded Art not as the compeer of Nature, much less her
superior, but as her servant and interpreter. He wrote poetry likewise,
no doubt, in a large measure, because self-utterance was an essential
law of his nature. If he had a companion, he discoursed like one whose
thoughts must needs run on in audible current; if he walked alone among
his mountains, he murmured old songs. He was like a pine grove, vocal as
well as visible. But to poetry he had dedicated himself as to the
utterance of the highest truths brought within the range of his life's
experience; and if his poetry has been accused of egotism, the charge
has come from those who did not perceive that it was with a human, not a
mere personal interest that he habitually watched the processes of his
own mind. He drew from the fountain that was nearest at hand what he
hoped might be a refreshment to those far off. He once said, speaking of
a departed man of genius, who had lived an unhappy life and deplorably
abused his powers, to the lasting calamity of his country, 'A great poet
must be a great man; and a great man