The inner conflict is the man he is by nature and the poet he is by vocation. The inner conflict he wrestles with is: Should I follow who I am by nature and follow my passion, become a poet ? or should I deny my true self and take up a more prosperous profession ? The history of past poets is grim--they die early by their own hand or by disease.
First of all, Wordsworth actually met a leech-gatherer. He was inspired by his real life to write this poem which is actually about all poets. In the first three stanzas of the poem, he is feeling good taking a morning walk after the rain. However from the fourth stanza until the seventh stanza he becomes very fearful. He is afraid for his life and the lives of other poets, saying,"We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; / But thereof come in the end despondency and madness." He also talks about poets who died young,"thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy / The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride". He is talking about Thomas Chatterton, a poet who killed himself at age 17. He also talks of Robert Burns another dead poet, "of Him who walked in glory and in joy / Following his plough, along the mountain-side". The end of the poem is where he meets the old, poor leech-gatherer who accepts his poor lot in life. Wordsworth feels better about himself in retrospect. He believed that the leech-gatherer was spiritually sent to him as a sort of role model, to show him how to stay strong, how to humbly accept his fate in life."To give me human strength, by apt admonishment".
The criticism of man and life is: why should claiming my own nature produce suffering ? It should not but there is a price to be paid for not following the crowd.
Wordsworth asks the perennial question:
What kind of suffering is more noble ? To follow oneself and die to the crowd or follow the crowd and die to oneself ?
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