But peace! enough Here to record that I was mounting now 125 To such community with highest truth-- A track pursuing, not untrod before, From strict analogies by thought supplied Or consciousnesses not to be subdued.
To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, 130 Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, I gave a moral life: I saw them feel, Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all That I beheld respired with inward meaning.

135 Add that whate'er of Terror or of Love Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on From transitory passion, unto this I was as sensitive as waters are To the sky's influence in a kindred mood 140 Of passion; was obedient as a lute That waits upon the touches of the wind.
Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich-- I had a world about me--'twas my own; I made it, for it only lived to me, 145 And to the God who sees into the heart.
Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed By outward gestures and by visible looks: Some called it madness--so indeed it was, If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy, 150 If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured To inspiration, sort with such a name; If prophecy be madness; if things viewed By poets in old time, and higher up By the first men, earth's first inhabitants, 155 May in these tutored days no more be seen With undisordered sight.

But leaving this, It was no madness, for the bodily eye Amid my strongest workings evermore Was searching out the lines of difference 160 As they lie hid in all external forms, Near or remote, minute or vast, an eye Which from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf, To the broad ocean and the azure heavens Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars, 165 Could find no surface where its power might sleep; Which spake perpetual logic to my soul, And by an unrelenting agency Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.
And here, O Friend! have I retraced my life 170 Up to an eminence, and told a tale Of matters which not falsely may be called The glory of my youth.

Of genius, power, Creation and divinity itself I have been speaking, for my theme has been 175 What passed within me.

Not of outward things Done visibly for other minds, words, signs, Symbols or actions, but of my own heart Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind.
O Heavens! how awful is the might of souls, 180 And what they do within themselves while yet The yoke of earth is new to them, the world Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.
This is, in truth, heroic argument, This genuine prowess, which I wished to touch 185 With hand however weak, but in the main It lies far hidden from the reach of words.
Points have we all of us within our souls Where all stand single; this I feel, and make Breathings for incommunicable powers; 190 But is not each a memory to himself?
And, therefore, now that we must quit this theme, I am not heartless, for there's not a man That lives who hath not known his god-like hours, And feels not what an empire we inherit 195 As natural beings in the strength of Nature.
No more: for now into a populous plain We must descend.