125 His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed; And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes Saw, over half the wilderness diffused, A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause: "It is," said he, "the waters of the deep 130 Gathering upon us;" quickening then the pace Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode, He left me: I called after him aloud; He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge Still in his grasp, before me, full in view, 135 Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, With the fleet waters of a drowning world In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror, And saw the sea before me, and the book, In which I had been reading, at my side.

[D] 140 Full often, taking from the world of sleep This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld, This semi-Quixote, I to him have given A substance, fancied him a living man, A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed 145 By love and feeling, and internal thought Protracted among endless solitudes; Have shaped him wandering upon this quest! Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt Reverence was due to a being thus employed; 150 And thought that, in the blind and awful lair Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.
Enow there are on earth to take in charge Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves, Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear; 155 Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say, Contemplating in soberness the approach Of an event so dire, by signs in earth Or heaven made manifest, that I could share That maniac's fond anxiety, and go 160 Upon like errand.

Oftentimes at least Me hath such strong enhancement overcome, When I have held a volume in my hand, Poor earthly casket of immortal verse, Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine! 165 Great and benign, indeed, must be the power Of living nature, which could thus so long Detain me from the best of other guides And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised, Even in the time of lisping infancy; 170 And later down, in prattling childhood even, While I was travelling back among those days, How could I ever play an ingrate's part?
Once more should I have made those bowers resound, By intermingling strains of thankfulness 175 With their own thoughtless melodies; at least It might have well beseemed me to repeat Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again, In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.

180 O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul, Think not that I could pass along untouched By these remembrances.

Yet wherefore speak?
Why call upon a few weak words to say What is already written in the hearts 185 Of all that breathe ?--what in the path of all Drops daily from the tongue of every child, Wherever man is found?
The trickling tear Upon the cheek of listening Infancy Proclaims it, and the insuperable look 190 That drinks as if it never could be full.
That portion of my story I shall leave There registered: whatever else of power Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be Peculiar to myself, let that remain 195 Where still it works, though hidden from all search Among the depths of time.