Bright _Flower_! for by that name at last When all my reveries are past, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, Sweet silent creature! That breath’st with me in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness, and a share Of thy meek nature! But Wordsworth found also joy in nature, which is a better thing than amusement, and consequently easier to be found. We can often have joy where we can have no amusement,-- I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. * * * * * The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What Health the show to me had brought. “For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.” This is the joy of the eye, as far as that can be separated from the joy of the whole nature; for his whole nature rejoiced in the joy of the eye; but it was simply joy; there was no further teaching, no attempt to go through this beauty and find the truth below it. We are not always to be in that hungry, restless condition, even after truth itself. If we keep our minds quiet and ready to receive truth, and _sometimes_ are hungry for it, that is enough. Going a step higher, you will find that he sometimes _draws_ a lesson from nature, seeming almost to force a meaning from her. I do not object to this, if he does not make too much of it as _existing_ in nature. It is rather finding a meaning in nature that he brought to it. The meaning exists, if not _there_. For illustration I refer to another poem. Observe that Wordsworth found the lesson because he looked for it, and _would_ find it. This Lawn, a carpet all alive With shadows flung from leaves--to strive In dance, amid a press Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields Of Worldlings revelling in the fields Of strenuous idleness. * * * * * Yet, spite of all this eager strife, This ceaseless play, the genuine life That serves the steadfast hours, Is in the grass beneath, that grows Unheeded, and the mute repose Of sweetly-breathing flowers. Whether he forced this lesson from nature, or not, it is a good lesson, teaching a great many things with regard to life and work. Again, nature sometimes flashes a lesson on his mind; _gives_ it to him--and when nature gives, we cannot but receive. As in this sonnet composed during a storm,--