All of these additions would be necessary if this estimate were intended to be complete. But it is not, and so let it stand. If we were to choose a motto for Wordsworth’s poetry it might be this: “Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice.” And if we looked farther for a watchword, we might take it from that other great poet, Isaiah, standing between the fierce radicals and sullen conservatives of Israel, and saying, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength, In rest and in returning ye shall be saved.” “THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT” ROBERT BROWNING’S POETRY There is a striking contrast between the poetry of Browning and the poetry of Wordsworth; and this comes naturally from the difference between the two men in genius, temperament and life. I want to trace carefully and perhaps more clearly some of the lines of that difference. I do not propose to ask which of them ranks higher as poet. That seems to me a futile question. The contrast in kind interests me more than the comparison of degree. And this contrast, I think, can best be felt and understood through a closer knowledge of the central theme of each of the two poets. Wordsworth is a poet of recovered joy. He brings consolation and refreshment to the heart,—consolation which is passive strength, refreshment which is peaceful energy. His poetry is addressed not to crowds, but to men standing alone, and feeling their loneliness most deeply when the crowd presses most tumultuously about them. He speaks to us one by one, distracted by the very excess of life, separated from humanity by the multitude of men, dazzled by the shifting variety of hues into which the eternal light is broken by the prism of the world,—one by one he accosts us, and leads us gently back, if we will follow him, into a more tranquil region and a serener air. There we find the repose of “a heart at leisure from itself.” There we feel the unity of man and nature, and of both in God. There we catch sight of those eternal stars of truth whose shining, though sometimes hidden, is never dimmed by the cloud-confusions of morality. Such is the mission of Wordsworth to the age. Matthew Arnold has described it with profound beauty. “He found us when the age had bound Our souls in its benumbing round, He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth, Smiles broke from us and we had ease, The hills were round us, and the breeze Went o’er the sun-lit fields again: Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. Our youth returned; for there was shed On spirits that had long been dead, Spirits dried up and closely furled, The freshness of the early world.”