might be poured out in the circumstances supposed on the mere impulse of natural passion; and yet the lines are full of poetical power. Undoubtedly, passion, or strong feeling, even in the rudest natures, has always something in it of poetry-something of the transforming and idealizing energy which gives both to conception and expression their poetical character; still it is not true either that poetry is universally nothing more than vivid sensation, or that the real language of men, however much excited, is usually to any considerable extent poetry. Even in this poem, unadorned as it is for the greater part, there will be found to be a good deal besides metre added to the natural language of passion; and the selection, too, must be understood as a selection of person as well as of language, for assuredly the Affliction of Margaret, even although it might have been as deeply felt, would not have supplied to one man or woman in a thousand or a million anything like either the diction or the train of reflection to which it has given birth in her-or rather in the great poet of whose imagination she, with all she feels and all she utters, is the creation. For this, after all, is the fundamental fact, that there never has been and never can be poetry without a poet; upon whatever principle or system of operation he may proceed, whether by the selection and metrical arrangement of the real language of passion or in any other way, it is the poet that makes the poetry, and without him it cannot have birth or being: he is the bee, without whom there can be no honey, the artist, or true creator, from whom the thing produced, whatever be its material, takes shape, and beauty, and a living soul.

The following, dated 1798, is from the same class, and in the same style, with the last. The verses are very beautiful; they bear some resemblance to the touching old Scotch ballad called Lady Anna Bothwell's Lament, beginning

Balow, my boy, lie still and sleep;

It grieves me sair to see thee weep —

of which there is a copy in Percy's Reliques, and others, differing considerably from that, in other collections :

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,

The sun has burned her coal-black hair;

Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,

And she came far from over the main.

She has a baby on her arın,

Or else she were alone:

And underneath the haystack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,

She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

"Sweet babe, they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I pray thee, have no fear of me;
But safe as in a cradle, here,
My lovely baby, shalt thou be:
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.

A fire was once within my brain;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces, one, two, three,
Hung at my breast, and pulled at me;
But then there came a sight of joy,
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little boy,
My little boy of flesh and blood;
Oh joy for me that sight to see!
For he was there, and only he.

Suck, little babe, oh suck again!
It cools my blood, it cools my brain;
Thy lips I feel them, baby! they
Draw from my heart the pain away.
Oh! press me with thy little hand;
It loosens something at my chest;
About that tight and deadly band
I feel thy little fingers prest.
The breeze I see is in the tree :
It comes to cool my babe and me.

Oh! love me, love me, little boy!
Thou art thy mother's only joy;
And do not dread the waves below
When o'er the sea-rock's edge we go;
The high crag cannot work me harm,
Nor leaping torrents when they howl;

The babe I carry on my arm

He saves for me my precious soul;
Then happy lie; for blest am I;

Without me my sweet babe would die.

Then do not fear, my boy! for thee
Bold as a lion will I be :

And I will always be thy guide,
Through hollow snows and rivers wide.
I'll build an Indian bower; I know
The leaves that make the softest bed:
And if from me thou wilt not go,
But still be true till I am dead,
My pretty thing, then thou shalt sing
As merry as the birds in spring.

Thy father cares not for my breast,
"Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest;
"Tis all thine own!--and, if its 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 thee, thou canst not see
How pale and wan it else would be.

Dread not their taunts, my little life;
I am thy father's wedded wife;
And underneath the spreading tree
We two will live in honesty.
If his sweet boy he could forsake,
With me he never would have stayed;
From him no harm my babe can take;
But he, poor man! is wretched made;
And every day we two will pray
For him that 's gone and far away.

I'll teach my boy the sweetest things,
I'll teach him how the owlet sings.

My little babe! thy lips are still,

And thou hast almost sucked thy fill.

Where art thou gone, my own dear child?

What wicked looks are those I see?

Alas! alas! that look so wild,
It never, never came from me:
If thou art mad, my pretty lad,
Then I must be for ever sad.

Oh! smile on me, my little lamb!
For I thy own dear mother am.
My love for thee has well been tried:
I've sought thy father far and wide.

I know the poisons of the shade,
I know the earth-nuts fit for food:
Then, pretty dear, be not afraid :
We'll find thy father in the wood.

Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!
And there, my babe, we 'll live for aye."

But much, perhaps we might say the greater part, of Wordsworth's poetry is in a very different style or manner. Take, for example, his noble Laodamia, dated 1814, and in the later editions placed among what he calls Poems of the Imagination, though formerly classed as one of the Poems founded on the Affections::

"With sacrifice before the rising morn

Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:*
Celestial pity I again implore:-

Restore him to my sight-great Jove, restore!"

So speaking, and by fervent love endowed

With faith, the suppliant heavenward lifts her hands;
While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,

Her countenance brightens-and her eye expands;
Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows;
And she expects the issue in repose.

O terror! what hath she perceived? O joy!
What doth she look on?

Whom doth she behold?

Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy?

His vital presence? his corporeal mould ?
It is if sense deceive her not-'tis He!

And a God leads him, winged Mercury!

Mild Hermes spake--and touched her with his wand
That calms all fear; "Such grace hath crowned thy prayer,
Laodamia! that at Jove's command

Thy husband walks the paths of upper air:

He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space;

Accept the gift, behold him face to face!"

* Is this alteration really an improvement, or is it only old familiarity and first love that makes us prefer the lines as they originally stood ?—

"With sacrifice before the rising morn

Performed my slaughtered Lord have I required;

And in thick darkness, amid shades forlorn,

Him of the infernal Gods have I desired."

It seems to us that the more passionate boldness of this is more in accordance with what immediately follows.

Forth sprang the impassioned Queen her Lord to clasp;
Again that consummation she assayed;
But unsubstantial form eludes her grasp
As often as that eager grasp was made.
The Phantom parts-but parts to re-unite,
And re-assume his place before her sight.

'Protesilaus, lo! thy guide is gone!
Confirm, I pray, the Vision with thy voice:
This is our palace,-yonder is thy throne;
Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will rejoice.
Not to appal me have the Gods bestowed
This precious boon; and blest a sad abode."

"Great Jove, Laodamia! doth not leave
His gifts imperfect :-Spectre though I be,
I am not sent to scare thee or deceive;
But in reward of thy fidelity.
And something also did my worth obtain;
For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain.

Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold

That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: A generous cause a victim did demand;

And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain;

A self-devoted chief-by Hector slain."

"Supreme of Heroes-bravest, noblest, best!
Thy matchless courage I bewail no more,

Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest
By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore:

Thou found'st-and I forgive thee-here thou art

A nobler counsellor than my poor heart.

But thou, though capable of sternest deed,

Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave;

And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed
That thou should'st cheat the malice of the grave;
Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair
As when their breath enriched Thessalian air.

No Spectre greets me,-no vain Shadow this;
Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side!
Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss
To me, this day, a second time thy bride!"

Jove frowned in heaven: the conscious Parcae threw
Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue.