BOOK TWELFTH.
IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED Long time have human ignorance and guilt Detained us, on what spectacles of woe Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts, Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed, 5 And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself And things to hope for! Not with these began Our song, and not with these our song must end .-- Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs, 10 Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers, Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race How without injury to take, to give Without offence [A]; ye who, as if to show The wondrous influence of power gently used, 15 Bend the complying heads of lordly pines, And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks, Muttering along the stones, a busy noise By day, a quiet sound in silent night; 20 Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore, Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm; And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is To interpose the covert of your shades, 25 Even as a sleep, between the heart of man And outward troubles, between man himself, Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart: Oh! that I had a music and a voice Harmonious as your own, that I might tell 30 What ye have done for me.

The morning shines, Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,-- I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice, In common with the children of her love, Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields, 35 Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
So neither were complacency, nor peace, Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good Through these distracted times; in Nature still 40 Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her, Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height.
Maintained for me a secret happiness.
This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told Of intellectual power, fostering love, 45 Dispensing truth, and, over men and things, Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing Prophetic sympathies of genial faith: So was I favoured--such my happy lot-- Until that natural graciousness of mind 50 Gave way to overpressure from the times And their disastrous issues.

What availed, When spells forbade the voyager to land, That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower 55 Of blissful gratitude and fearless love?
Dare I avow that wish was mine to see, And hope that future times _would_ surely see, The man to come, parted, as by a gulph, From him who had been; that I could no more 60 Trust the elevation which had made me one With the great family that still survives To illuminate the abyss of ages past, Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed That their best virtues were not free from taint 65 Of something false and weak, that could not stand The open eye of Reason.

Then I said, "Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee More perfectly of purer creatures;--yet If reason be nobility in man, 70 Can aught be more ignoble than the man Whom they delight in, blinded as he is By prejudice, the miserable slave Of low ambition or distempered love ?" In such strange passion, if I may once more 75 Review the past, I warred against myself-- A bigot to a new idolatry-- Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world, Zealously laboured to cut off my heart From all the sources of her former strength; 80 And as, by simple waving of a wand, The wizard instantaneously dissolves Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul As readily by syllogistic words Those mysteries of being which have made, 85 And shall continue evermore to make, Of the whole human race one brotherhood.
What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far Perverted, even the visible Universe Fell under the dominion of a taste 90 Less spiritual, with microscopic view Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?
O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair! That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too, Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds 95 And roaring waters, and in lights and shades That marched and countermarched about the hills In glorious apparition, Powers on whom I daily waited, now all eye and now All ear; but never long without the heart 100 Employed, and man's unfolding intellect: O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divine Sustained and governed, still dost overflow With an impassioned life, what feeble ones Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been 105 When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke Of human suffering, such as justifies Remissness and inaptitude of mind, But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased Unworthily, disliking here, and there 110 Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred To things above all art; but more,--for this, Although a strong infection of the age, Was never much my habit--giving way To a comparison of scene with scene, 115 Bent overmuch on superficial things, Pampering myself with meagre novelties Of colour and proportion; to the moods Of time and season, to the moral power, The affections and the spirit of the place, 120 Insensible.

Nor only did the love Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt My deeper feelings, but another cause, More subtle and less easily explained, That almost seems inherent in the creature, 125 A twofold frame of body and of mind.
I speak in recollection of a time When the bodily eye, in every stage of life The most despotic of our senses, gained Such strength in _me_ as often held my mind 130 In absolute dominion.