Wordsworth 's Excursion reads:
Voiceless the stream descends into the gulf
With timid lapse;--and lo! while in this strait
I stand--the chasm of the sky above my head
Is heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
for fickle, short-lived clouds to occupy,
Or to pass through; but rather an abyss
In which the everlasting stars abide;
And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt
the curious eye to look for them by day
( Wordsworth, Poetical Works, p. 78)
Ruskin valued Wordsworth not only as a poet who accurately painted the beauty of nature in his work but also as one who inspired re-evaluations of the natural world in his readers; Ruskin's admiration of Wordsworth's view of the sky not only as a colourful backdrop for stars and clouds but as an 'abyss' in which stars abide echoes his appreciation in Modern Painters I of Dickens 's observations about skies in American Notes.