205 Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that intellectual Love, For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually .-- Here must thou be, O Man! Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; 210 Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: No other can divide with thee this work: No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability; 'tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine 215 In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else is not thine at all.

But joy to him, Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid Here, the foundation of his future years! 220 For all that friendship, all that love can do, All that a darling countenance can look Or dear voice utter, to complete the man, Perfect him, made imperfect in himself, All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen 225 Up to the height of feeling intellect Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart Be tender as a nursing mother's heart; Of female softness shall his life be full, Of humble cares and delicate desires, 230 Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.
Child of my parents! Sister of my soul! Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere Poured out [D] for all the early tenderness Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true 235 That later seasons owed to thee no less; For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch Of kindred hands that opened out the springs Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite Of all that unassisted I had marked 240 In life or nature of those charms minute That win their way into the heart by stealth (Still to the very going-out of youth), I too exclusively esteemed _that_ love, And sought _that_ beauty, which, as Milton sings, 245 Hath terror in it.

[E] Thou didst soften down This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend! My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood In her original self too confident, Retained too long a countenance severe; 250 A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds Familiar, and a favourite of the stars: But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers, Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze, And teach the little birds to build their nests 255 And warble in its chambers.

At a time When Nature, destined to remain so long Foremost in my affections, had fallen back Into a second place, pleased to become A handmaid to a nobler than herself, 260 When every day brought with it some new sense Of exquisite regard for common things, And all the earth was budding with these gifts Of more refined humanity, thy breath, Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring 265 That went before my steps.

Thereafter came One whom with thee friendship had early paired; She came, no more a phantom to adorn A moment, [F] but an inmate of the heart, And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined 270 To penetrate the lofty and the low; Even as one essence of pervading light Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars, And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp Couched in the dewy grass.
With such a theme, 275 Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee Shall I be silent?
O capacious Soul! Placed on this earth to love and understand, And from thy presence shed the light of love, Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of?
280 Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts Did also find its way.