The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and, further, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards our conversations and our affections.
In prosecuting this plan, the principal difficulty which presented itself was, that the language of men in a state of vivid sensation, and of strong emotion, is proverbial and metaphorical. Among men, in proportion as intellectual activity is in a state of successive awakening, the same thought or the same feeling recurs perpetually under similar expressions. A language, therefore, which is habitually chosen for common life, will, when tried by the severer laws of poetry, be found to abound with what are called common-places; it will abound with trite phraseology and images; and while it may be the more natural, on that very account it may be the less fit for becoming the vehicle of lofty or deep feeling.
To remedy this defect, it was necessary that the language of poetry should be selected from what in common life is terms of the same obvious signification, but elevated by the power of association and the combination of ideas. The mind of man is conscious of a thousand more subtle sympathies and antipathies, of a thousand more remote recollections, than can be expressed in language. And in proportion as the subjects of poetry are more or less elevated, the language must be adapted.
The only possible method of recapturing a natural language for poetry, is to derive the language of the poem from the passions of men, and to select incidents and characters in which these passions are most powerfully and immediately excited. The present poems have been written and selected with this object. The incidents are to be such as in ordinary life excite natural feelings; and the language is to be that commonly used by men when these feelings are the strongest.
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. The emotion is contemplated until, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is formed; the mind does not rest until it has poured forth all that it feels. Poetry is the result of such a process; and as in the higher species of poetry the feeling makes a principal part of the effect, the recollection of emotion in tranquillity is necessary to the production of all such poetry.
The more nearly the language of prose approaches to that of poetry, the less it will be found to be available; for there are circumstances and feelings in which a man is hardly ever conscious of himself, — in which his mind, by its suddenness and energy, escapes from its chain, and throws off the load of cogitation. For such feelings, if they are to be embodied and preserved, it is requisite that the poet should either reproduce the language of actual life, or should avowly adopt such forms of speech as suspend the operation of words from their usual connexion and create by their novelty an effect analogous to that of passion.
The language of conversation when elevated and refined by firm and well-chosen imagery, becomes the natural language of poetry. It will be proper, therefore, in the poems here presented, to make use of such expressions as are found in the common language of men, but to employ them in such a manner as to clothe them with consistent and vivid imagery, and to give to them, by the unity of moral effect, that elevated tone which merges the local into the universal.
Poems are the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; they are also a great outlet to the soul of man. They are, moreover, the natural sentiments of human beings under the influence of various modifications of feeling: and the choice of subjects, the diction, and the composition, ought to be adapted to the primary laws of our nature.
I have said that when the language of men is copious and figurative, it betrays the poet, and reveals him as having had recourse to the mere resources of phraseology. Hence it follows, that in order to avoid these faults, we must have recourse to the description of the passions themselves. When the passions are described in strong and natural language, they will supply images and phrases of a new order; and the mind conscious of emotion will not need to borrow from conventional diction.
The general tendency of these poems is to prefer incidents and situations from the life of humble and rustic persons, to those of more elevated and complicated characters; and to prefer scenes of domestic and rural life, where passions are simple and feelings sincere, to such as are drawn from courts and palaces, where the feelings are less immediate and the language is more artificial.
In the selection of subjects, I have been guided by the conviction that the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings is most frequently to be expected from persons placed in situations of great simplicity and integrity of mind; and that the language of such persons, when they speak in their own proper style and not in phrases borrowed from books, is the best model for poetical diction.
To conclude: the object of these Prefaces is to vindicate the choice of subjects and the language of these Poems; to show that what is called poetic diction is often a mask under which feebleness of thought is concealed; and that the real language of poetry is the language of men in a condition of freedom from the restraints of artifice and the constraints of fashionable life.