rest upon
the common realities of life and to dispense with its anomalies." The
student should therefore be careful to observe (1) the truth of
description, and the appropriateness of the description to the
characters; (2) the strong and accurate delineation of the characters
themselves. Not only is this to be noted in the passages where the poet
has taken pains openly to portray their various characteristics, but
there are many passages, or single lines perhaps, which serve more subtly
to delineate them. What proud reserve, what sorrow painfully restrained,
the following line, for example, contains: "Two evenings after he had
heard the news."

TO THE DAISY

COMPOSED 1802: PUBLISHED 1807

"This and the other poems addressed to the same flower were composed at
Town-end, Grasmere, during the earlier part of my residence there." The
three poems on the Daisy were the outpourings of one mood, and were
prompted by the same spirit which moved him to write his poems of humble
life. The sheltered garden flowers have less attraction for him than the
common blossoms by the wayside. In their unobtrusive humility these
"unassuming Common-places of Nature" might be regarded, as the poet says,
"as administering both to moral and spiritual purposes." The "Lesser
Celandine," buffeted by the storm, affords him, on another occasion, a
symbol of meek endurance.

Shelley and Keats have many beautiful references to flowers in their
poetry. Keats has merely a sensuous delight in their beauty, while
Shelley both revels in their hues and fragrance, and sees in them a
symbol of transitory loveliness. His _Sensitive Plant_ shows his
exquisite sympathy for flower life.

TO THE CUCKOO

COMPOSED IN THE ORCHARD AT TOWN-END 1802: PUBLISHED 1807

Wordsworth, in his Preface to the 1815 edition, has the following note on
ll. 3, 4 of the poem:--"This concise interrogation characterises the
seeming ubiquity of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of
corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion of
her power, by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost
perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an
object of sight." The cuckoo is the bird we associate with the name of
the vale of sunshine and of flowers, and yet its wandering voice brings
back to him the thought of his vanished childhood. We have already
noticed the almost sacred value which Wordsworth att