Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/26

xviii humble in their kind, if they be good in that kind, cannot read themselves: the law of long syllable and short must not be so inflexible—the letter of metre must not be so impassive to the spirit of versification—as to deprive the Reader of a voluntary power to modulate, in subordination to the sense, the music of the poem;—in the same manner as his mind is left at liberty, and even summoned, to act upon its thoughts and images. But, though the accompaniment of a musical instrument be frequently dispensed with, the true Poet does not therefore abandon his privilege distinct from that of the mere Proseman;

I come now to the consideration of the words Fancy and Imagination, as employed in the classification of the following Poems. "A man," says an intelligent Author, has "imagination," in proportion as he can distinctly copy in idea the impressions of sense: it is the faculty which