‘Awfully mighty in his impotence,’

which, by way of repayment, I may he tempted to steal from you on some future occasion.

It pleases, though it does not surprise me, to learn that, having been affected early in life by my verses, you have returned again to your old loves after some little infidelities, which you were shamed into by commerce with the scribbling and chattering part of the world.  I have heard of many who upon their first acquaintance with my poetry have had much to get over before they could thoroughly relish it; but never of one who having once learned to enjoy it, had ceased to value it, or survived his admiration.  This is as good an external assurance as I can desire, that my inspiration is from a pure source, and that my principles of composition are trustworthy.

With many thanks for your good wishes, and begging leave to offer mine in return,

I remain,
Dear Sir,
Respectfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[76]

[76] Memoirs, ii. 52-4.

Bernard Barton, Esq., Woodbridge, Suffolk.

46. Of the Thanksgiving Ode and ’White Doe of Rylston.’

LETTER TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.

1816.  MY DEAR SOUTHEY,

I am much of your mind in respect to my Ode.  Had it been a hymn, uttering the sentiments of a multitude, a stanza would have been indispensable.  But though I have called it a ‘Thanksgiving Ode,’ strictly speaking it is not so, but a poem, composed, or supposed to be composed, on the morning of the thanksgiving, uttering the sentiments of an individual upon that occasion.  It is a dramatised ejaculation; and this, if any thing can, must excuse the irregular frame of the metre.  In respect to a stanza for a grand subject designed to be treated comprehensively, there are great objections.  If the stanza be short, it will scarcely allow of fervour and impetuosity, unless so short, as that the sense is run perpetually from one stanza to another, as in Horace’s Alcaics; and if it be long, it will be as apt to generate diffuseness as to check it.  Of this we have innumerable instances in Spenser and the Italian poets.  The sense required cannot he included in one given stanza, so that another whole stanza is added, not unfrequently, for the sake of matter which would naturally include itself in a very few lines.

If Gray’s plan be adopted, there is not time to become acquainted with the arrangement, and to recognise with pleasure the recurrence of the movement.

Be so good as to let me know where you found most difficulty in following me.  The passage which I most suspect of being misunderstood is,

    ‘And thus is missed the sole true glory;’

and the passage, where I doubt most about the reasonableness of expecting that the reader should follow me in the luxuriance of the imagery and the language, is the one that describes, under so many metaphors, the spreading of the news of the Waterloo victory over the globe.  Tell me if this displeased you.