SPIRITUALITY OF SOUND. Was passing sweet; the eye-balls of the Leopards In cadence, and Silenus swang This way and that, with wild flowers crowned." 45 And in the following lines descriptive of Skating, we catch the glimpse of the sparkling steel, and the swiftly flying forms, not by any description of the physique of the scene, but by the Creaking of the Ice, and the dropping of the icicle from the tree, or the plunge of the snow-drift into the abyss below, startling the clear winter echoes, we have already aroused, while "The precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Of melancholy, not unnoticed." But the references to sound and its influnce are scat tered with such affluence thro' the volumes of the poet, that the citations can only be by way of illustration. Sound is made almost the soul of all things. "By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled." The heavens are filled with everlasting harmony,-"the ocean is a mighty harmonist," -the skylark is a "Happy, happy liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain river, How exquisite that delineation of one of his heroines: 66 Beauty born of murmuring sound Did pass into her face." How grotesque the picture of the boy who "Press'd closely palm to palm, and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as thro' an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him." All these intimations guide to an organic sensibility so refined that it seems to have quivered and trembled at every tone breath'd forth from nature's harp, and they unlock much of that apparent mystic hidden meaning of which it has been the fashion to speak in connection with the poet; sounds and scenes were to him unquestionably symbols, and had their moral significancies and meanings, the "wandering utterances" are questioned if earth has no scheme of moral music? and the meaning behind every sound, consoling the poet is that "Though earth be dust And vanish, though the heavens dissolve;—our stay Thus we shall see clearly that the characteristic of Wordsworth's poetry which most prominently distinguishes it from all other writings, is the earnest and profound sympathy with nature as nature, running throughout. Let the reader attentively note the following quotations in sweetness, in exquisite tenderness those INTENSE SYMPATHY WITH NATURE. 47 immediately following have seldom by any poet been equalled. "I heard a thousand blended notes, As in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts, To her fair works did nature link, The human soul that through me ran, Through primrose tufts in that green bower, And tis my faith that every flower, The birds around me hopp'd and play'd, The budding twigs spread out their fan, And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If this belief from heaven be sent, Have I not reason to lament, What man has made of man." And thus, the sympathy established between the poet and his world, that world becomes his instructor: "One impulse from a vernal wood, Will teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Enough of science and of art, Close up those barren leaves, Come forth-and bring with you a heart, That watches, and receives." How much truth there is in this the reader knows, of old this lesson has come to us as the wisest and the best, the only lesson indeed worth communicating. Study Nature; man is the minister and interpreter of nature-it is the study of nature that best calls out the inner life within us, that best suggests to us the worthy and the noble; it is surprising says the Apologist and Lover of nature, how little we learn from books; they are only valuable as they suggest to us natural analogies and teachings; the greatest masters learned of nature. "Believe me on my own experience," said St. Bernard, "you will find more in the woods than in books; the forests and rocks will teach you more than you can learn of the greatest masters." And all men become wise only as they sit at the feet of nature and make her the instructress, director, and teacher. Books are in many instances barren and unprofitable leaves; they cramp the free soul, but let a man walk by the margin of the sea, or through the forest alcove for two hours each day, with no other pages save his own heart and the boundless worlds around him, and it is wonderful through what phases of mental and moral being he will pass. Books are only valuable as they suggest ideas to the mind, but that man will be incomparably most rich in ideas who brings his consciousness to derive its power from the great moods of revolving nature; "to him," says the loving Rhapsodist, "who listens to what nature says, she soon speaks in tones eloquently intelligible, who reverently seeks her, finds her, as Numa found the fond Egeria of old in the grotto and the cave, but nature must be wooed to be won; no coquet is she, to dance before the eyes of all, to unveil her beauties to the gaze of all, who likes to tread her exterior demesnes may-she opens free her pastures and her forests to all, the wilderness and the field, the mossy thyme-covered bank, the lonely woodland, the resounding shore, she never locks up her rainbows from the most vulgar eye; her mountain passes, her inland lakes, her bleak headlands, and ocean isles who will may see; but these are but the thresholds of her court and her temple; the grotto and the grove you may see, but the spirit, the arch priestess, it is possible to frequent the porch all your days, nor ever to behold her; the mind must be purged from earth's impurities, it must pass through trials and through mysteries like the Eleusinian of old, from hatred and scorn it must be purged, must come to the woods and groves chastened and forgiving; must come, not to be amused, not to kill time, but as a learner -come in this mood and no matter how else the pilgrim come, poor, persecuted, despised, bereaved, sorrowing, let him come and he shall be comforted; for him soft ministering voices shall run along the boughs in music; for him the nymph shall return to the wood, and the naiad to the stream; for him as he lies upon the margin of the stream, or beneath the branches of F |