But, as you have before been told, This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, And, with his dancing crest, So beautiful, through savage lands Had roamed about with vagrant bands Of Indians in the West. The wind, the tempest roaring high, The tumult of a tropic sky, Might well be dangerous food For him, a Youth to whom was given So much of earth--so much of heaven, And such impetuous blood. Whatever in those climes he found Irregular in sight or sound Did to his mind impart A kindred impulse, seemed allied To his own powers, and justified The workings of his heart. Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, The beauteous forms of nature wrought, Fair trees and lovely flowers; The breezes their own languor lent; The stars had feelings, which they sent Into those magic bowers. Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween, That sometimes there did intervene Pure hopes of high intent For passions linked to forms so fair And stately, needs must have their share Of noble sentiment.” But from Mr. Wordsworth’s more elevated compositions, which already form three-fourths of his works; and will, I trust, constitute hereafter a still larger proportion;--from these, whether in rhyme or blank verse, it would be difficult and almost superfluous to select instances of a diction peculiarly his own, of a style which cannot be imitated without its being at once recognised, as originating in Mr. Wordsworth. It would not be easy to open on any one of his loftier strains, that does not contain examples of this; and more in proportion as the lines are more excellent, and most like the author. For those, who may happen to have been less familiar with his writings, I will give three specimens taken with little choice. The first from the lines on the BOY OF WINANDER-MERE,--who “Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him.--And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, With long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild Of mirth and jocund din! And when it chanced, That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill, Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene [73] Would enter unawares into his mind With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received Into the bosom of the steady lake.” The second shall be that noble imitation of Drayton [74] (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the lines TO JOANNA.