"The earth we pace

Again appears to me

An unsubstantial, faery place."

143. Fallings from us, vanishings, the feeling we have that external objects, visible and tangible, seem to fall away from us, as unreal, and vanish in unsubstantiality. See Introduction; and The Prelude, ii. 349-352 :

"Bodily eyes

Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw
Appeared like something in myself, a dream,
A prospect of the mind."

144. Blank misgivings, vague, baffling doubts.

146. High instincts etc. Cf. The Prelude, xii. 221-225:

"How

The mind is lord and master-outward sense

The obedient servant of her will. Such moments
Are scattered everywhere, taking their date

From our first childhood."

147. Did tremble... surprised.

I. i. 148, 149:

An echo of Shaks. Hamlet,

149. Those shadowy recollections. Plato's ȧváμvnois; see Introduction. Cf. Tennyson, The Two Voices, 127, 128:

"Moreover, something is or seems,

That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams-
Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where ;
Such as no language may declare."

And The Prelude, i. 631-635 :

"Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things, those lovely forms

And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy

A visible scene. ""

151, 152. the fountain light... a master light. These recollections of a previous immortal existence are the prime source of all our truest happiness and the chief guiding influence to direct our lives aright.

154, 155. Our noisy years... silence. As we contemplate that calm eternity from which we came and to which we go, our human life, with its turmoil and excitement, seems but a

momentary interval lying between the two eternities. Cf. On the Power of Sound, xiv. :

"O Silence! are Man's noisy years
No more than moments of thy life?"

Wordsworth repre

158. man nor boy, manhood nor boyhood. 161-167. Hence in a season ... evermore. sents the soul as borne by the ocean of eternity to the shore of this world and landing upon it at its human birth. As we grow older, we travel further and further inland, away from "that immortal sea"; but, under the influence of these recollections, we may yet at once retrace our steps and so recover and feel once more in sympathy with those old "high instincts" of childhood. So, on the other hand, Tennyson in Crossing the Bar pictures himself at death as "putting out to sea,' ," "embarking" upon the ocean of eternity, to be carried by it away from earth-" our bourne of Time and Place." Cf. A Tradition of Oker Hill, 13, 14: "The sea

That to itself takes all, Eternity."

168-186. Therefore we can still join in the spring-tide rejoicings of nature. For though the old splendour is gone, the early sympathy with nature remains, and with riper years come strength and calm after sorrow, and faith in a future life.

168. Then sing etc. See lines 19-21.

171. in thought, not actively, but in sympathetic feeling. 181. the primal sympathy, childhood's intuitive sympathy and communion with nature-an instinct which is never lost.

183, 184. In the soothing... suffering. Our experience of the sorrows of human life brings with it the exercise of patience and sympathy for others which have a softening effect upon our minds. Cf. Peele Castle, 35, 57-60; and The Excursion, iv. 10581077: "Within the soul a faculty abides" etc.

185. through death, i.e. to the immortal life beyond the grave. This thought is illustrated by The Primrose of the Rock.

186. the philosophic mind, calmness and self-control, which we acquire as we grow older. Cf. R. Browning, James Lee's Wife, vi. 10:

"For kind

Calm years, exacting their account
Of pain, mature the mind."

And The Prelude, i. 235-237 :

"With trust

That mellower years will bring a riper mind

And clearer insight."

187-203. Nay, I love nature as much or even more than before, though my love is now chastened by my experience of the frailty

and the changes of human life-an experience, however, which has given me rich human sympathies, so that the humblest natural object, can for me be suggestive of the deepest pathos.

188. our loves. Nature, as it were, requited his love for her by her revelation of herself to him. Cf. Tintern Abbey, 122, 123.

190, 191. one delight... sway. I have lost one particular delight (the "visionary gleam" of 1. 56), with the result of living in more continual communion with nature.

192. fret is O.E. fretan, a contraction of for-etan, to eat away; hence, to chafe, to be in commotion or agitation.

194. innocent brightness. The beautiful epithet "innocent" (i. e. pure) harmonizes with the subsequent "new-born." Day is compared to an innocent new-born infant.

196-198. The clouds... mortality. Such an aspect of nature as a sunset, beautiful as it is, has a tinge of melancholy for my maturer vision, for it presents to my mind a type of human decay.

197. a sober colouring. Cf. Tintern Abbey, 138-140.

199. Another race... are won. 'A new course of strenuous self-discipline has been gone through, and has brought me new spiritual gains to balance the loss I have sustained. Cf. Peele

Castle, 34, and Tintern Abbey, 87-89. For race, cf. Bible, 1 Cor. ix. 24: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." For palms are won," cf. The Prelude, iii. 505: "Whatever palms are won"; and Ib. v. 8: "those palms achieved."

Prof. Dowden, however, explains the line thus: "It is a sunset reflection, natural to one who has kept watch o'er man's mortality': the day is closing, as human lives have closed; the sun went forth out of his chamber as a strong man to run a race, and now the race is over and the palm has been won; all things have their hour of fulfilment " (see Bible, Psalms, xix. 4, 5). It seems just possible that "another race may be in allusion to "my second race " in 1. 4 of Vaughan's Retreat, quoted in the Introduction.

دو

200. the human heart, our human sympathy, which is the mainstay of our moral being. Cf. Peele Castle, 53, 54.

203. Thoughts that... tears. Just as a sunset (1. 196) may suggest thoughts of human decay, so a humble flower may give rise to feelings that are too deep and intense to find expression in tears. Cf. The Tables Turned, st. 6:

"One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can,

And The Excursion, i. 942-952:

"I well remember that those very plumes,
Those weeds, and the high spear-grass on that wall,
By mist and silent rain-drops silvered o'er,
As once I passed, into my heart conveyed
So still an image of tranquillity,

That what we feel of sorrow and despair

Appeared an idle dream."

And Peter Bell, Part I. st. 12:

"A primrose by the river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

203. too deep for tears. Cf. Thucydides, vii. 75: μeltw †) xaTà dáκpua, "(misfortunes) too great for tears."

INDEX TO NOTES.

[The references are to the pages. Italics denote subjects.]