Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/422

362 the regions of true simplicity and genuine pathos, (as is evinced by the exquisite ballad of Sir Cauline and by many other pieces) yet, when he appeared in his own person and character as a poetical writer, he adopted, as in the tale of the Hermit of Warkworth, a diction scarcely in any one of its features distinguishable from the vague, the glossy, and unfeeling language of his day. I mention this remarkable fact with regret, esteeming the genius of Dr. Percy in this kind of writing superior to that of any other man by whom, in modern times, it has been cultivated. That even Burger, (to whom Klopstock gave, in my hearing, a commendation which he denied to Goethe and Schiller, pronouncing him to be a genuine Poet, and one of the few among the Germans whose works would last) had not the fine sensibility of Percy, might be shewn from many passages, in which he has deserted his original only to go astray. For example,

Which is thus tricked out and dilated,

Als nun die Nacht Gebirg' und Thal

Vermummt in Rabenschatten,

Und Hochburgs Lampen ŭber-all

Schon ausgeflimmert hatten,

Und alles tief entschlafen war;

Doch nur das Fraulein immerdar,

Voll Fieberangst, noch wachte,

Und seinen Ritter dachte: