For example, a little farther on
in "Peter Bell" we find:--
"_Now_--like a tempest-shattered bark
That overwhelmed and prostrate lies,
And in a moment to the verge
Is lifted of a foaming surge--
Full suddenly the Ass doth rise!"
And one cannot help thinking that the similes of the huge stone, the
sea-beast, and the cloud, noble as they are in themselves, are somewhat
too lofty for the service to which they are put.[357]
The movement of Wordsworth's mind was too slow and his mood to meditative
for narrative poetry. He values his own thoughts and reflections too much
to sacrifice the least of them to the interests of his story. Moreover,
it is never action that interests him, but the subtle motives that lead
to or hinder it. "The Wagoner" involuntarily suggests a comparison with
"Tam O'Shanter" infinitely to its own disadvantage. "Peter Bell," full
though it be of profound touches and subtle analysis, is lumbering and
disjointed. Even Lamb was forced to confess that he did not like it. "The
White Doe," the most Wordsworthian of them all in the best meaning of the
epithet, is also only the more truly so for being diffuse and reluctant.
What charms in Wordsworth and will charm forever is the
"Happy tone
Of meditation slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone,"
A few poets, in the exquisite adaptation of their words to the tune of
our own feelings and fancies, in the charm of their manner, indefinable
as the sympathetic grace of woman, _are_ everything to us without our
being able to say that they are much in themselves.
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