“the fierce confederate storm
  Of sorrow barricadoed evermore
  Within the walls of cities;"[386]

although even here, perhaps, the power of style which is undeniable, is more properly that of eloquent prose than the subtle heightening and change wrought by genuine poetic style.  It is style, again, and the elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of Laodameia.  Still, the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, if we are to seize his true and most characteristic form of expression, is a line like this from Michael—­

  “And never lifted up a single stone.”

There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style, strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and most truly expressive kind.

Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire fidelity it utters, Burns could show him.

  “The poor inhabitant below
  Was quick to learn and wise to know,
  And keenly felt the friendly glow
    And softer flame;
  But thoughtless follies laid him low
    And stain’d his name."[387]

Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth; and if Wordsworth did great things with this nobly plain manner, we must remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to acknowledge, that Burns used it before him.

Still Wordsworth’s use of it has something unique and unmatchable.  Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power.  This arises from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural character of his subject itself.  He can and will treat such a subject with nothing But the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness.  His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem of Resolution and Independence; but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur.

Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique.  His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance.  I have a warm admiration for Laodameia and for the great Ode; but if I am to tell the very truth, I find Laodameia not wholly free from something artificial, and the great Ode not wholly free from something declamatory.  If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth’s unique power, I should rather choose poems such as Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper.[388] And poems with the peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still exceedingly high.