In Wordsworth 's poetry, nature plays a dominant role. So, he 's called the Nature Poet. He finds out and establishes a cordial, passionate, impressive, emotional , intellectual, spiritual and inseparable relation between nature and human life in his poems. All created things are, he claims, parts of a unified whole.
Through his personal experience, Wordsworth expresses his philosophy of nature and some relationships between man and nature in 'Tintern Abbey' (composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour)
Wordsworth believes in the Pantheistic view – God is all and God is everything. He feels the existence of a sublime divine spirit pervading all of nature's objects – in the setting sun, the round ocean, the living air, the blue sky, man's mind etc. He says-
“A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts
And rolls through all things.”
Thus, nature including man is related to God.
According to Wordsworth, nature plays the role of bringing happiness to the human heart, purifying the human mind and providing a calming effect on the hearts afflicted by sorrow. Wordsworth loves interacting with nature and purifies his mind with the knowledge of nature, 'in lonely rooms and halfway through the noise of cities and towns.' In addition, nature has not become for him 'a landscape to the eye of a blind man.'It indicates that the eyes of the city people are blind because they cannot get anything from nature.
Wordsworth mentions the moral influence of Nature on human being; there is a spiritual intercourse between man and nature. He regards nature as –
“The anchor of my purest thought, the nurse
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
Wordsworth advises his sister, Dorothy, to put herself under the influence of nature, and assures her that
“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.”
In addition, Wordsworth displays three stages of the human soul in relation to nature. Wordsworth's love for nature in the first stage was merely of physical passion and animal pleasure. He loved only the sensual and outward beauty in the second stage but the philosophy of nature. Yet he can now grasp the secret sense of nature in the third level, and can hear 'the silent, sad music of mankind.'That is, nature not only attracts man with her beauty but also makes him conscious of the fact that there is something wrong in mankind which is responsible for all suffering.
Here's an ode, "Intimations of Immortality," demonstrating Wordsworth 's philosophy of soul pre-existence; the soul in relation to nature in infancy, and slowly in mature ages:
The metaphysical meaning of Wordsworth in this poem is that our sublime comes from Heaven or Christ; they return to Christ again after passing through nature and becoming mature.Wordsworth views childhood as the best time in human life and is very close to both nature and God. He addresses the child's 'best philosopher,' 'Mighty Prophet' and 'Seer blest.' Because the child unconsciously knows the deep truths of life and nature that philosophers have learned among men are trying to find out 'the darkness of the grave is lost.'The cause of the child’s knowing these well is that he has been a ‘Foster- child’ of nature, and has a direct vision of the divine glory. [Criticism of the views of childhood]
According to Wordsworth, when the child grows up, he gradually departs from nature as well as God. But, Wordsworth is not worried about it. Because, there is a possibility of change by nature: he is optimistic that the immortal memories of his childhood would convert him to nature. Moreover, being grown up, he has been sober, mature and philosophical, instead of his having the rapturous vision of childhood. He can perceive something nobler and wiser even in the humble and common objects of nature. He says –
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”
So, the implicit suggestion for us is that the suffering humanity can solve his problems by returning to nature.
Romanticism is actually a movement for common people. It adopts the language of common class for literature. Wordsworth influenced by the democratic impulse of the French Revolution, eagerly greets the revolution as a poet of humanity he writes a poem namely ‘French Revolution’ expecting “the world/ of all of us, - the place where in the end/ we find our happiness.’’
Wordsworth connects human life with nature also in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” or “Daffodils’’. Here Daffodils represent the impermanence of human life. Once the poet experienced a ‘jocund company’ with numerous daffodils. But that pleasant moment does not accompany him all time. Wordsworth visualizes them only in his ‘vacant or pensive mode.’ He says-
“For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils’’
Robert Herrick also compares the impermanence of human life with daffodils in his ‘To Daffodils’ –
“We have short time to stay, as you
We have as short a spring.’’
Therefore we see that Wordsworth is ‘a worshipper of Nature,’ a devotee of nature. He feels no problem in nature, while Shakespeare in his ‘Under the Green Wood Tree’ shows some problem of nature. He ignores the negative aspects of nature which defers from our experience, while Shelley considers nature to be both ‘destroyer and preserver.’ He regards nature as a preacher, teacher, father and a healing power, while Byron in his ‘Don Juan’ shows that Juan cannot get rid of his mental problems even after going close contact with nature. Anyway, his love of nature leads him to hear the ‘still, sad music of humanity’ and to welcome the beginning of the French Revolution. So evaluating his treatment of nature, he can be said as the poet of nature as well as the poet of humanity.