view, who has taken a perpetual retainer from his
own incapacity to plead against my claims to public approbation.

I differ from you in thinking that the only poetical lines in your
address are 'stolen from myself.' The best verse, perhaps, is the
following:

'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 c