These lines from _France_ were written by Coleridge when he was a little over twenty-five years old. In the combination of two gifts, music and meaning, he is hardly surpassable at his best by any poet. Not an atom of meaning is sacrificed to gain a melody: in fact the melody adds to the meaning. Here is another example showing how the poetic form with Coleridge is not a hindrance to expression, but aids it. Gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The things of Nature utter; birds or trees, Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass ’mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.’ His similitudes are not mere external comparisons; the objects compared become _modes_ of unity. ‘A brisk gale and the foam that peopled the _alive_ [italics C.’s] sea, most interestingly combined with the number of white seagulls, that, repeatedly, it seemed as if the foam-spit had taken life and wing, and had flown up.’ * * * * * The intimations which are but whispered, the Presences which are but half-disclosed, are those which we should intently obey. The coarsely obvious has its own strength. ‘She went forth alone Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft, With dim inexplicable sympathies Disquieting the heart, shapes out Man’s course To the predoomed adventure.’ _Destiny of Nations_. * * * * * Wordworth’s habit of spending so much time in the open air and with the humble people around him gives to what he says the value of experience, distinguishable totally from the ideas of the literary man, which may be brilliant, but do not agree with the sun, moon and stars, and turn out to be nothing when we ask is the thing really _so_. Wordsworth’s verses have been in the sun and wind. It is a test of good sane writing that we can read it out of doors. * * * * * If Wordsworth’s love of clouds and mountains ended there it would be no better than the luxury of a refined taste. But it does not end there. It affects the whole of his relationships with men and women, and is therefore most practical. * * * * * In Wordsworth what we expect does not come, but in its place the unexpected. In the twelfth book of the _Prelude_ he tells us: