"But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which be they what they may, Are yet a fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the Eternal silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy. Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea {335} Which brought us hither, Can, in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." These verses belong to an ode that should never be forgotten when we reckon up the higher reaches of the poetic tides of this generation. I am disposed to think that all of us, as we grow older, come into larger and fuller appreciation of the wonderful intuitions of this poet and of his marvellous grasp of all the subtler meanings in Nature's aspects. Certainly those lines composed above _Tintern Abbey_, do not offer food for babes. Only older ones know that-- "Nature never did betray The heart that loves her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings." {336}