eBooks Base 2000

One may deride the
public's inconsistency, yet, after all, we have not to read many pages
of the "homely" poets before their professed ability to get down to the
level of the "common man" begins to remind one of pre-campaign speeches.
There seems to be nothing for the poet to do, then, but to accept the
hostility of the world philosophically. There are a few notable examples
of the poet even welcoming the solitude that society forces upon him,
because it affords additional opportunity for self-communion. Everyone
is familiar with Wordsworth's insistence that uncompanionableness is
essential to the poet. In the _Prelude_ he relates how, from early
childhood,
I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,
The self-sufficing power of solitude.
Elsewhere he disposes of the forms of social intercourse:
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast night.
[Footnote: _Personal Talk_.]
So he describes the poet's character:
He is retired as noontide dew
Or fountain in a noonday grove.


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