ABSTRACT
In this Poem Mr. Wordsworth has displayed a richness of fancy and a tenderness of feeling which place him in a high rank among the living Poets of his Country. It is not merely by proving himself to be endowed with those qualities that he merits this distinction; it is by the power which he exercises, apparently without effort, over the minds of his readers; by the artless and natural touches with which he excites and kindles emotions congenial with his own; and by his skill in awakening those simple tones of real pathos, to which every heart, alive to the charms of Poetry, must vibrate in unison. Heretofore he has been censured, and even ridiculed, for debasing these powers, for the homeliness of his diction, and the want of dignity in his characters; but in the present case such censure would be misplaced, and the ingenious severity of criticism will not easily find matter for ridicule.
