As if a voice were in them, the sick sight Tumult and peace, the darkness and the Were all like workings of one mind, the fea tures Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end." Another instance of the poet's alertness to the voices of nature is the passage in the fifth book of "The Prelude," beginning, "There was a boy." The famous description of winter sports— "All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice" X affords a good illustration of Wordsworth's delight in both sound and motion. No lovelier example of Wordsworth's Uor M SOUND AND MOTION sense of the beauty of motion, as an expression of grace and gentleness, could be given than the lines which tell of the white Doe's weekly visit to Bolton Priory during the hour of service. The passage is perfect;-in diction, in imagery, in versification: "The only voice which you can hear -When soft!-the dusky trees between, Free entrance to the churchyard ground- Soft and silent as a dream, A solitary Doe! White she is as lily of June, And beauteous as the silver moon When out of sight the clouds are driven And she is left alone in heaven; Or like a ship some gentle day In sunshine sailing far away, A glittering ship, that hath the plain Is there not something more than romantic fancy in the thought that Nature hath power to mould even the bodily form of one, who, from earliest childhood, lives in close sympathy with her, in her daily presence? And shall not "beauty born of murmuring sound" pass into the face of the maiden who leans "her ear to many a secret place where rivulets dance their wayward round?" What could be more beautiful than the following exquisite stanzas from that most Wordsworthian poem, "Three years she Grew?"— "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy. "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear SOUND AND MOTION To many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, Reference has already been made to the power possessed by the family of floods over the minds of poets, old and young. Our poet finds a friend in every babbling brook; "he loves the brooks far better than the sage's books." "Fondly I pursued," he tells us, “even when a child, the streams, unheard, unseen." "They taught me random cares and truant joys, That shield from mischief and preserve from stains Vague minds, while men are growing out of boys." "The Derwent, fairest of all rivers, loved to Blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, And, from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flowed along my dreams." Certain rivers will always be associated with the name of Wordsworth. Everybody knows those sweetest and tenderest of poems, the three poems to the River Yarrow,— "Yarrow Stream! To dream-light dear while yet unseen, And dearer still, as now I feel, The sonnets to The River Duddon, though little known, are, indeed, refreshing when read on a summer day. They suggest what is cool, and sweet, and restful: you feel soft breezes; you hear glad bird-notes; you smell the delicate scent of wild flowers; you rejoice in green bowers and quivering sunbeams; you follow the smooth, glistening River "through dwarf willows gliding and by ferny brake; you linger under the shade of green alders and silver birch-trees. As you advance with the majestic Duddon, in its "radiant progress. toward the Deep," you feel your heart joining in the Poet's prayer that you may be |