345 How shall I seek the origin?
where find Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt?
Oft in these moments such a holy calm Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw 350 Appeared like something in myself, a dream, A prospect in the mind.

[Z] 'Twere long to tell What spring and autumn, what the winter snows, And what the summer shade, what day and night, Evening and morning, sleep and waking, thought 355 From sources inexhaustible, poured forth To feed the spirit of religious love In which I walked with Nature.

But let this Be not forgotten, that I still retained My first creative sensibility; 360 That by the regular action of the world My soul was unsubdued.

A plastic power Abode with me; a forming hand, at times Rebellious, acting in a devious mood; A local spirit of his own, at war 365 With general tendency, but, for the most, Subservient strictly to external things With which it communed.

An auxiliar light Came from my mind, which on the setting sun Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds, 370 The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed A like dominion, and the midnight storm Grew darker in the presence of my eye: Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, 375 And hence my transport.
Nor should this, perchance, Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved The exercise and produce of a toil, Than analytic industry to me More pleasing, and whose character I deem 380 Is more poetic as resembling more Creative agency.