But I think it is in the Sonnets that this element of Wordsworth’s poetry finds the broadest and most perfect expression. For here he sweeps upward from the thought of the freedom and greatness of the individual man to the vision of nations and races emancipated and ennobled by loyalty to the right. How pregnant and powerful are his phrases! “Plain living and high thinking.” “The homely beauty of the good old cause.” “A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.” “Man’s unconquerable mind.” “By the soul only, the Nations shall be great and free.” The whole series of _Sonnets addressed to Liberty_, published in 1807, is full of poetic and prophetic fire. But none among them burns with a clearer light, none is more characteristic of him at his best, than that which is entitled _London, 1802_. “Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour; England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up; return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; Thou had’st a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life’s common way In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.” This sonnet embraces within its “scanty plot of ground” the roots of Wordsworth’s strength. Here is his view of nature in the kinship between the lonely star and the solitary soul. Here is his recognition of life’s common way as the path of honour, and of the lowliest duties as the highest. Here is his message that manners and virtue must go before freedom and power. And here is the deep spring and motive of all his work, in the thought that _joy_, _inward happiness_, is the dower that has been lost and must be regained. Here then I conclude this chapter on Wordsworth. There are other things that might well be said about him, indeed that would need to be said if this were intended for a complete estimate of his influence. I should wish to speak of the deep effect which his poetry has had upon the style of other poets, breaking the bondage of “poetic diction” and leading the way to a simpler and more natural utterance. I should need to touch upon his alleged betrayal of his early revolutionary principles in politics, and to show, (if a paradox may be pardoned), that he never had them and that he always kept them. He never forsook liberty; he only changed his conception of it. He saw that the reconstruction of society must be preceded by reconstruction of the individual. Browning’s stirring lyric, _The Lost Leader_,— “Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,”— may have been written with Wordsworth in mind, but it was a singularly infelicitous suggestion of a remarkably good poem.