There is no affectation in
the expression of the wish, "O that the desert were my dwelling-place!"
though we know that the writer on the shores of the Mediterranean still
craved for the gossip of the clubs. It only shows that--
Two desires toss about
The poet's feverish blood;
One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.
Of Byron's two contemporary rivals, Wordsworth had no feverish blood;
nothing drove him to the world without; consequently his "eyes avert their
ken from half of human fate," and his influence, though perennial, will
always be limited. He conquered England from his hills and lakes; but his
spirit has never crossed the Straits which he thought too narrow. The
other, with a fever in his veins, calmed it in the sea and in the cloud,
and, in some degree because of his very excellencies, has failed as yet to
mark the world at large. The poets' poet, the cynosure of enthusiasts, he
bore the banner of the forlorn hope; but Byron, with his feet of clay, led
the ranks. Shelley, as pure a philanthropist as St. Francis or Howard,
could forget mankind, and, like his Adonais, become one with nature.
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