Shelley and Wordsworth as poets of nature: In his interpretation of Nature, Shelley suggests Wordsworth both by resemblance and by contrast. To both poets all natural objects are symbols of truth; both regard nature as permeated by the higher spiritual life, which animates all things; but while Wordsworth finds a spirit of thought and so of communion between nature and the soul of man, Shelley finds a spirit of love, which exists chiefly in its own delight. And so The Cloud, The Skylark and The West Wind, three of the most beautiful poems in the English language, have no definite message for humanity. In his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Shelley is most like Wordsworth, but in his Sensitive Plant, with its fine symbolism and imagery he is like nobody in the world but himself. Comparison sometimes is an excellent thing and if we compare Shelley’s exquisite Lament, beginning

“0 World! 0 Life! 0 time!”

with Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality we shall perhaps understand both the poets better. Both poems recall many happy memories of youth, both express a very real mood of a moment; but while the beauty of one merely saddens and disheartens us, the beauty of the other inspires us with something of the poet’s own faith and hopefulness. In a word, Wordsworth found and Shelley lost himself in Nature.