Much of the religion by which Wordsworth lives is very indefinite. Look at the close of this poem:—
‘I well remember that those very plumes, Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall By mist and silent rain-drops silver’d o’er, As once I pass’d, did to my heart convey So still an image of tranquillity, So calm and still, and look’d so beautiful Amid the uneasy thoughts which fill’d my mind, That what we feel of sorrow and despair From ruin and from change, and all the grief The passing shows of Being leave behind, Appear’d an idle dream, that could not live Where meditation was. I turn’d away, And walk’d along my road in happiness.’
Because this religion is indefinite it is not therefore the less supporting.
Why, by the way, did Wordsworth expunge from _Michael_ these wonderful lines?
‘In his thoughts there were obscurities, Wonder, and admiration, things that wrought Not less than a religion in his heart.’
Something like them had been said before, but they ought to have been retained.
The changes in the sky in this Quantock country are as sudden and strange as in Cumberland. During a walk from Cleeve Abbey to Bicknoller it rained in torrents till within half a mile of the end of my journey. All at once it ceased, and the uniform sheet of rain-cloud broke into loose ragged masses swirling in different directions and variously lighted, the sun almost shining through some of the clefts between them. Cleeve Abbey, lying in the trough of a green valley through which runs a stream, the cloister garth and the Abbot’s seat at the end of it, are most impressive. Under the turf lie the dead monks. A place like this begets half-unconscious dreaming which issues in nothing and is not wholesome. It would be better employment to learn something about the history of the abbey and about its architecture.
Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds’ singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save where your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind.’
These lines from _France_ were written by Coleridge when he was a little over twenty-five years old. In the combination of two gifts, music and meaning, he is hardly surpassable at his best by any poet. Not an atom of meaning is sacrificed to gain a melody: in fact the melody adds to the meaning.