The power, which all Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus To bodily sense exhibits, is the express Resemblance of that glorious faculty That higher minds bear with them as their own.

90 This is the very spirit in which they deal With the whole compass of the universe: They from their native selves can send abroad Kindred mutations; for themselves create A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns 95 Created for them, catch it, or are caught By its inevitable mastery, Like angels stopped upon the wind by sound Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
Them the enduring and the transient both 100 Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things From least suggestions; ever on the watch, Willing to work and to be wrought upon, They need not extraordinary calls To rouse them; in a world of life they live, 105 By sensible impressions not enthralled, But by their quickening impulse made more prompt To hold fit converse with the spiritual world, And with the generations of mankind Spread over time, past, present, and to come, 110 Age after age, till Time shall be no more.
Such minds are truly from the Deity, For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss That flesh can know is theirs--the consciousness Of Whom they are, habitually infused 115 Through every image and through every thought, And all affections by communion raised From earth to heaven, from human to divine; Hence endless occupation for the Soul, Whether discursive or intuitive; [C] 120 Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life, Emotions which best foresight need not fear, Most worthy then of trust when most intense Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush Our hearts--if here the words of Holy Writ 125 May with fit reverence be applied--that peace Which passeth understanding, that repose In moral judgments which from this pure source Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.
Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long 130 Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?
For this alone is genuine liberty: Where is the favoured being who hath held That course unchecked, unerring, and untired, In one perpetual progress smooth and bright ?--135 A humbler destiny have we retraced, And told of lapse and hesitating choice, And backward wanderings along thorny ways: Yet--compassed round by mountain solitudes, Within whose solemn temple I received 140 My earliest visitations, careless then Of what was given me; and which now I range, A meditative, oft a suffering man-- Do I declare--in accents which, from truth Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend 145 Their modulation with these vocal streams-- That, whatsoever falls my better mind, Revolving with the accidents of life, May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled, Never did I, in quest of right and wrong, 150 Tamper with conscience from a private aim; Nor was in any public hope the dupe Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits, But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy 155 From every combination which might aid The tendency, too potent in itself, Of use and custom to bow down the soul Under a growing weight of vulgar sense, And substitute a universe of death 160 For that which moves with light and life informed, Actual, divine, and true.

To fear and love, To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends, Be this ascribed; to early intercourse, In presence of sublime or beautiful forms, 165 With the adverse principles of pain and joy-- Evil, as one is rashly named by men Who know not what they speak.

By love subsists All lasting grandeur, by pervading love; That gone, we are as dust .-- Behold the fields 170 In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love, And not inaptly so, for love it is, 175 Far as it carries thee.

In some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world: There linger, listening, gazing, with delight Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! 180 Unless this love by a still higher love Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe; Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer, By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul, Lifted, in union with the purest, best, 185 Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.
This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist Without Imagination, which, in truth, Is but another name for absolute power 190 And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And Reason in her most exalted mood.
This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labour: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard 195 Its natal murmur; followed it to light And open day; accompanied its course Among the ways of Nature, for a time Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed: Then given it greeting as it rose once more 200 In strength, reflecting from its placid breast The works of man and face of human life; And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought Of human Being, Eternity, and God.