Touchstones- Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnolds theory says that in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of
      poetry, and that these passages should be applied as        touchstones to other poetry.
-Some of Arnolds touchstone passages are: Hellen's words about her wounded, and Beatrice's loving words to Virgil.
For me my touchstone would be William Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality.  The beauty and wisdom in this poem exceeds those of most other poets and should be used as an example influential work. 
  "Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting:
      The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
          Hath had elsewhere its setting,
           And cometh from afar:
                    Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness
                        But trailing clouds of glory do we come
                                   From God, who is our home
                                     Heaven lies about us on our infancy!
                                            Shades of the prison-house begin to close
                                         Upon the growing boy,
                                       But He beholds the light, and whence it flows
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel still, still in natures priest
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length of the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
 
But then Wordsworth goes on to give us hope.........
                         
                           "We will grieve not, rather find
                           Strength in what remains behind;
                           In the primal sympathy
                           Which having been must ever be
                           In the soothing thoughts the spring
                           Out of human suffering;
                           In the faith that looks through death,
                           In years that bring the philosophic mind"

                                                                                          If this is not great stuff I don't know what is!
                       
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