Many poets have produced beautiful paintings of the external features of nature. With rare genius, Wordsworth looked beyond the color of the flower, the outline of the hills, the beauty of the clouds, to the spirit that breathed through them, and he communed with "Nature's self, which is the breath of God." He introduced lovers of his poetry to a new world of nature, a new source of companionship and solace, a new idea of a Being in cloud and air and "the green leaves among the groves." Poetry of Man: Narrative Poems.--Wordsworth is a poet of man as well as of nature. The love for nature came to him first; but out of it grew his regard for the people who lived near to nature. His poetry of man is found more in his longer narrative poems, although in them as well as in his shorter pieces, he shows the action of nature on man. In _The Prelude_, the most remarkable autobiographical poem in English, not only reveals the power in nature to develop man, but he also tells how the French revolution made him feel the worth of each individual soul and a sense of the equality of all humanity at the bar of character and conscience. As his lyrics show the sympathetic soul of nature, so his narrative poems illustrate the second dominant characteristic of the age, the strong sense of the worth of the humblest man. [Illustration: GRASMERE LAKE.] _Michael_, one of the very greatest of his productions, displays a tender and living sympathy with the humble shepherd. The simple dignity of Michael's character, his frugal and honorable life, his affection for his son, for his sheep, and for his forefather's old home, appealed to the heart of the poet. He loved his subject and wrote the poem with that indescribable simplicity which makes the tale, the verse, and the tone of thought and feeling form together one perfect and indissoluble whole. _The Leech-Gatherer_ and the story of "Margaret" in _The Excursion_ also deal with lowly characters and exhibit Wordsworth's power of pathos and simple earnestness. He could not present complex personalities; but these characters, which belonged to the landscapes of the Lake District and partook of its calm and its simplicity, he drew with a sure hand. His longest narrative poem is _The Excursion_ (1814), which is in nine books. It contains fine passages of verse and some of his sanest and maturest philosophy; but the work is not the masterpiece that he hoped to make. It is tedious, prosy, and without action of any kind. The style, which is for the most part heavy, becomes pure and easy only in some description of a mountain peak or in the recital of a tale, like that of "Margaret."