This is a stage in Wordsworth's career on which his biographer is tempted unduly to linger. For we have reached the Indian summer of his genius; it can still shine at moments bright as ever, and with even a new majesty and calm; but we feel, nevertheless, that the melody is dying from his song; that he is hardening into self-repetition, into rhetoric, into sermonizing common-place, and is rigid where he was once profound. The _Thanksgiving Ode_ (1816) strikes death to the heart. The accustomed patriotic sentiments--the accustomed virtuous aspirations--these are still there; but the accent is like that of a ghost who calls to us in hollow mimicry of a voice that once we loved. And yet Wordsworth's poetic life was not to close without a great symbolical spectacle, a solemn farewell. Sunset among the Cumbrian hills, often of remarkable beauty, once or twice, perhaps, in a score of years, reaches a pitch of illusion and magnificence which indeed seems nothing less than the commingling of earth and heaven. Such a sight--seen from Rydal Mount in 1818--afforded once more the needed stimulus, and evoked that "_Evening Ode, composed on an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty_," which is the last considerable production of Wordsworth's genius. In this ode we recognize the peculiar gift of reproducing with magical simplicity as it were the inmost virtue of natural phenomena. No sound is uttered, but a deep And solemn harmony pervades The hollow vale from steep to steep, And penetrates the glades. Far distant images draw nigh, Called forth by wondrous potency Of beamy radiance, that imbues Whate'er it strikes, with gem-like hues! In vision exquisitely clear Herds range along the mountain side; And glistening antlers are descried, And gilded flocks appear. Once more the poet brings home to us that sense of belonging at once to two worlds, which gives to human life so much of mysterious solemnity. Wings at my shoulder seem to play; But, rooted here, I stand and gaze On those bright steps that heavenward raise Their practicable way. And the poem ends--with a deep personal pathos--in an allusion, repeated from the _Ode on Immortality_, to the light which "lay about him in his infancy,"--the light Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored; Which at this moment, on my waking sight Appears to shine, by miracle restored! My soul, though yet confined to earth, Rejoices in a second birth; --'Tis past, the visionary splendour fades; And night approaches with her shades.