Contents - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The University of Auckland

Nature and Human Life’ all take place in a world totally separate from the world of Coleridge’sDivinity.Having acknowledged his appreciation of Dorothy’s and Coleridge’s love, Wordsworthfinally presents what appears to be the climax to his narrative – his announcement that he considershimself now ‘capable’ of producing his planned epic, The Recluse. And what he has managed toachieve and demonstrate in writing his Address to Coleridge should be sufficient proof.And now, O Friend! this history is broughtTo its appointed close: the disciplineAnd consummation of the Poet’s mind,In everything that stood most prominent,Hath faithfully been pictured; we have reachedThe time (which was our object from the first)When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and suchMy knowledge, as to make me capableOf building up a Work that should endure. (XIII 269-278)The claim is worthy of a triumphant exclamation – given that it asserts Wordsworth’s ethos asa capable poet, endowed with sufficient ‘power’ in his ability to deliver an address, (oratio) andsufficient ‘knowledge’ for his words to have authority (ratio). I have already commented on thesignificance of this passage as humbly demonstrating the fulfilment of a natural process and assertingthe attainment of a habitual power that has become a character virtue. The claim is a significant one.But, typically, Wordsworth immediately undercuts the significance of his assertion with the statementin the following line, ‘Yet much hath been omitted …” And in reading on, the reader discovers thatthis section of the poem actually stands apart from the main body of the text, in a stanza of twentylines that presents a carefully balanced antithesis.Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;Of books how much! and even of the other wealthWhich is collected among woods and fields,Far more: For Nature’s secondary grace,That outward illustration which is hers,Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,The charm more superficial, and yet sweet,Which from her works finds way, contemplatedAs they hold forth a genuine counterpartAnd softening mirror of the moral world. (XIII 279-288)The first ten lines affirm Wordsworth’s ethos as a capable poet worthy of producing an epic – whilethe second ten lines present a lament for what he has failed to address sufficiently. ‘Books’ are namedin a metonymic substitution for human knowledge and then ‘the other wealth’, (perhaps the ‘common’wealth) to be found ‘among woods and fields’. He then announces his neglect of ‘Nature’s secondarygrace’, something he acknowledges that he has barely touched upon. Her charm, ‘more superficial andyet sweet’ holds forth, however, a genuine counterpart / And softening mirror of the moral world’. Itwould seem that there is a mood of regret coupled with the one of triumph, and a sense that something123