With most delight the passions of mankind,

Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears revealed;

There saw into the depth of human souls,

Souls that appear to have no depth at all

To careless

eyes.

And

now convinced at heart

How little those formalities, to which

With overweening trust alone we give
The name of Education, have to do

With real feeling and just sense; how vain
A correspondence with the talking world
Proves to the most; and called to make good
search

If man's estate, by doom of Nature yoked

With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;
If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,

And intellectual strength so rare a boon

I prized such walks still more, for there I found
Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace
And steadiness, and healing, and repose
To every angry passion. There I heard,
From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths
Replete with honor; sounds in unison
With loftiest promises of good and fair.

There are who think that strong affection, love Known by whatever name, is falsely deemed A gift, to use a term which they would use, Of vulgar nature; that its growth requires Retirement, leisure, language purified By manners studied and elaborate;

That whoso feels such passion in its strength
Must live within the very light and air
Of courteous usages refined by art.

True is it, where oppression worse than death
Salutes the being at his birth, where grace
Of culture hath been utterly unknown,
And poverty and labor in excess
From day to day preoccupy the ground
Of the affections, and to Nature's self
Oppose a deeper nature; there, indeed,
Love cannot be; nor does it thrive with ease
Among the close and over-crowded haunts
Of cities, where the human heart is sick,
And the eye feeds it not, and cannot feed.

-

- Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel
How we mislead each other; above all,
How books mislead us, seeking their reward
From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see
By artificial lights; how they debase
The Many for the pleasure of those Few;
Effeminately level down the truth

To certain general notions, for the sake

Of being understood at once, or else

Through want of better knowledge in the heads

That framed them; flattering self-conceit with

words,

That, while they most ambitiously set forth
Extrinsic differences, the outward marks

Whereby society has parted man

From man, neglect the universal heart.

Here, calling up to mind what then I saw,
A youthful traveller, and see daily now
In the familiar circuit of

my home,
Here might I pause, and bend in reverence
To Nature, and the power of human minds,
To men as they are men within themselves.
How oft high service is performed within,
When all the external man is rude in show,
Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold,
But a mere mountain chapel, that protects
Its simple worshippers from sun and shower.
Of these, said I, shall be my song; of these,
If future years mature me for the task,
Will I record the praises, making verse
Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth
And sanctity of passion, speak of these,
That justice may be done, obeisance paid
Where it is due: thus haply shall I teach,
Inspire, through unadulterated ears.

Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope, my theme
No other than the very heart of man,

As found among the best of those who live,
Not unexalted by religious faith,

Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few
In Nature's presence: thence may I select
Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight;
And miserable love, that is not pain
To hear of, for the glory that redounds
Therefrom to human kind, and what we are
Be mine to follow with no timid step

Where knowledge leads me: it shall be my pride
That I have dared to tread this holy ground,
Speaking no dream, but things oracular;
Matter not lightly to be heard by those
Who to the letter of the outward promise
Do read the invisible soul; by men adroit
In speech, and for communion with the world
Accomplished; minds whose faculties are then
Most active when they are most eloquent,
And elevated most when most admired.

Men
may be found of other mould than these,
Who are their own upholders, to themselves
Encouragement, and energy, and will,
Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words,
As native passion dictates. Others, too,
There are among the walks of homely life
Still higher, men for contemplation framed,
Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase;
Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink
Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse:
Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,
The thought, the image, and the silent joy :
Words are but under-agents in their souls;
When they are grasping with their greatest strength
They do not breathe among them: this I speak
In gratitude to God, who feeds our hearts
For His own service; knoweth, loveth us,
When we are unregarded by the world.

Also, about this time did I receive

Convictions still more strong than heretofore.
Not only that the inner frame is good,
And graciously composed, but that, no less,
Nature for all conditions wants not power
To consecrate, if we have eyes to see,
The outside of her creatures, and to breathe
Grandeur upon the very
humblest face

Of human life. I felt that the array

Of act and circumstance, and visible form,
Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind

What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms

Of Nature have a passion in themselves,

That intermingles with those works of man

To which she summons him; although the works
Be mean, have nothing lofty of their own;
And that the Genius of the Poet hence

May boldly take his way among mankind
Wherever Nature leads; that he hath stood
By Nature's side among the men of old,
And so shall stand for ever. Dearest Friend!
If thou partake the animating faith
That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each
Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,
Have each his own peculiar faculty,
Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive
Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame
The humblest of this band who dares to hope
That unto him hath also been vouchsafed
An insight that in some sort he possesses,