THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE

Published 1842

[This subject has been treated of in another note. I will here only, by way of comment, direct attention to the fact, that pictures of animals and other productions of Nature, as seen in conservatories, menageries,and museums, etc., would do little for the national mind, nay, they would be rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded by the presence of the object, more or less out of a state of Nature. I fit were not that we learn to talk and think of the lion and the eagle, the palm-tree, and even the cedar, from the impassioned introduction of them so frequently into Holy Scripture, and by great poets, and divines who wrote as poets, the spiritual part of our nature, and therefore the higher part of it, would derive no benefit from such intercourse with such subjects.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED.

The gentlest Poet, with free thoughts endowed,

And a true master of the glowing strain,

Might scan the narrow province with disdain

That to the Painter's skill is here allowed.

This, this the Bird of Paradise! disclaim

The daring thought, forget the name;

This the Sun's Bird, whom Glendoveers might own

As no unworthy Partner in their flight

Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway

Of nether air's rude billows is unknown;

Whom Sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they

Through India's spicy regions wing their way,

Might bow to as their Lord. What character,

O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,

Of all thy feathered progeny

Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?

So richly decked in variegated down,

Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,

Tints softly with each other blended,

Hues doubtfully begun and ended;

Or intershooting, and to sight

Lost and recovered, as the rays of light

Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there?

Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life

Began the pencil's strife,

O'erweening Art was caught as in a snare.

A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong

Gave the first impulse to the Poet's song;

But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew

A juster judgment from a calmer view;

And, with a spirit freed from discontent,

Thankfully took an effort that was meant

Not with God's bounty, Nature's love, to vie,

Or made with hope to please that inward eye

Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy,

But to recal the truth by some faint trace

Of power ethereal and celestial grace,

That in the living Creature find on earth a place.