"Then and then only painter! Could thy art...". Wordsworth on time, changes, memory and art in portrait poems

Memory, collective and private, and Arts were ever the means to oppose the flight of time, changes, and death through the keeping of images. Their potential, collaboration, and rivalry in this undertaking, as well as those of the artists - the most vital subject discussed. English Romantics' approach to the problem is shown through its consideration in the late ekphrastic poems of their genius of retrospection national bard W. Wordsworth. Commenting on the painted portraits of the important public figures and on private ones of relatives and friends he covers the whole scope of the function of memory and the role of Art as its support.