With the whole compass of the universe:
They from their native selves can send abroad
Kindred mutations; for themselves create
A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns
Created for them, catch it, or are caught
By its inevitable mastery,

Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound
Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
Them the enduring and the transient both
Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things
From least suggestions; ever on the watch,
Willing to work and to be wrought upon,
They need not extraordinary calls

To rouse them; in a world of life they live,
By sensible impressions not enthralled,
But by their quickening impulse made more
prompt

To hold fit converse with the spiritual world,
And with the generations of mankind
Spread over time, past, present, and to come,
Age after age, till Time shall be no more.
Such minds are truly from the Deity,
For they are Powers: and hence the highest
bliss

That flesh can know is theirs-the conscious

ness

Of Whom they are, habitually infused Through every image and through every thought,

And all affections by communion raised
From earth to heaven, from human to divine;
Hence endless occupation for the Soul,
Whether discursive or intuitive;
Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,
Emotions which best foresight need not fear,
Most worthy then of trust when most intense.
Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush
Our hearts-if here the words of Holy Writ
May with fit reverence be applied that peace
Which passeth understanding, that repose
In moral judgments which from this pure

source

Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.

Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself? For this alone is genuine liberty:

Where is the favoured being who hath held
That course unchecked, unerring, and untired,
In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?
A humbler destiny have we retraced,
And told of lapse and hesitating choice,
And backward wanderings along thorny ways:
Yet-compassed round by mountain solitudes,
Within whose solemn temple I received
My earliest visitations, careless then
Of what was given me and which now I range,
A meditative, oft a suffering man-
Do I declare-in accents which, from truth
Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend
Their modulation with these vocal streams-
That, whatsoever falls my better mind,
Revolving with the accidents of life,
May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,
Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,
Tamper with conscience from a private aim;
Nor was in any public hope the dupe
Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield
Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,
But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy
From every combination which might aid

The tendency, too potent in itself,

Of use and custom to bow down the soul
Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
And substitute a universe of death

For that which moves with light and life informed,

Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,
To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,
Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,
In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,
With the adverse principles of pain and joy-
Evil, as one is rashly named by men
Who know not what they speak.

subsists

By love

All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;
That gone, we are as dust.-Behold the fields
In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers
And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb
And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways
Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this
love,

And not inaptly so, for love it is,

Far as it carries thee. In some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world: There linger, listening, gazing, with delight Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! Unless this love by a still higher love

Be hallowed, love that breathes not without

awe;

Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer, By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the

soul,

Lifted, in union with the purest, best,
Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise
Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne,

This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist
Without Imagination, which, in truth,
Is but another name for absolute power
And Reason in her most exalted mood.
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
This faculty hath been the feeding source
Of our long labour: we have traced the stream
From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard
Its natal murmur; followed it to light
And open day; accompanied its course
Among the ways of Nature, for a time
Then given it greeting as it rose once more
Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed;
In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

The works of man and face of human life; Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

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; 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 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! 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 sou! hath risen
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,
Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.

Child of my parents! Sister of my soul !
Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
Poured out for all the early tenderness
Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true
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
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,

Hath terror in it. 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;
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
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,
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
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, but an inmate of the heart,
And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined
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,
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?
Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts
Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed
Her over-weening grasp; thus thoughts and
things

In the self-haunting spirit learned to take
More rational proportions; mystery,
The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,

And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust
In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay
Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,
Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and
there

Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs,

At every season green, sweet at all hours.

And now, O Friend! this history is brought
To its appointed close: the discipline
And consummation of a Poet's mind,
In everything that stood most prominent,
Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached
The time (our guiding object from the first)
When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,
Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such
My knowledge, as to make me capable
Of building up a Work that shall endure.
Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;
Of books how much! and even of the other
wealth

That is collected among woods and fields,
Far more: for Nature's secondary grace
Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,
The charm more superficial that attends
Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice
Apt illustrations of the moral world,
Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains.
Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak
With due regret) how much is overlooked
In human nature and her subtle ways,
As studied first in our own hearts, and then
In life among the passions of mankind,
Where'er we move, under the diverse shapes
Varying their composition and their hue,

That individual character presents
To an attentive eye. For
progress meet,
Along this intricate and difficult path,
Whate'er was wanting, something had I gained,
As one of many schoolfellows compelled,
In hardy independence, to stand up
Amid conflicting interests, and the shock
Of various tempers; to endure and note
What was not understood, though known to be;
Among the mysteries of love and hate,
Honour and shame, looking to right and left,
Unchecked by innocence too delicate,
And moral notions too intolerant,
Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called
To take a station among men, the step
Was easier, the transition more secure,
More profitable also; for the mind
Learns from such timely exercise to keep
In wholesome separation the two natures,
The one that feels, the other that observes.

Yet one word more of personal concern ;-
Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,
I led an undomestic wanderer's life,
In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,
Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot

be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of The Recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (The Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of The Recluse, may be acceptable as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole Poem.

"On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of imagery before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; And I am conscious of affecting thoughts And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh The good and evil of our mortal state. -To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, Whether from breath of outward circumstance, Or from the Soul- an impulse to herself— I would give utterance in numerous verse. Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; Of blessed consolations in distress; Of moral strength, and intellectual Power; Of joy in widest commonalty spread; Of the individual Mind that keeps her own Inviolate retirement, subject there To Conscience only, and the law supreme Of that Intelligence which governs all→

I sing:-fit audience let me find though few!'

So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the
Bard-

In holiest mood. Urania, I shall need
Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!
For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink
Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.
All strength-all terror, single or in bands,
That ever was put forth in personal form-
Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir
Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones-
I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not

The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,
Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out
By help of dreams-can breed such fear and awe
As fall upon us often when we look

Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-
My haunt, and the main region of my song.
-Beauty-a living Presence of the earth,
Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms
Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed
From earth's materials-waits upon my steps;
Pitches her tents before me as I move,
An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves
Elysian, Fortunate Fields-like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic Main-why should they be
A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was?
For the discerning intellect of Man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day.
-I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
Of this great consummation:-and, by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims
How exquisitely the individual Mind
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less
Of the whole species) to the external World
Is fitted-and how exquisitely, too-
Theme this but little heard of among men-
The external World is fitted to the Mind;
And the creation (by no lower name
Can it be called) which they with blended might
Accomplish:- this is our high argument.

-Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft
Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
Of madding passions mutually inflamed;
Must hear Humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities-may these sounds
Have their authentic comment; that even these
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!-
Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st
The human Soul of universal earth,
Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess
A metropolitan temple in the hearts
Of mighty Poets: upon me bestow
A gift of genuine insight; that my Song
With star-like virtue in its place may shine,
Shedding benignant influence, and secure,
Itself, from all malevolent effect

Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere !-And if with this

I mix more lowly matter; with the thing
Contemplated, describe the Mind and Man
Contemplating: and who, and what he was--
The transitory Being that beheld

This Vision: when and where, and how he lived;
Be not this labour useless. If such theme
May sort with highest objects, then-dread
Power!

Whose gracious favour is the primal source
Of all illumination-may my Life
Express the image of a better time,
More wise desires, and simpler manners-nurce
My Heart in genuine freedom:
all pure

thoughts

Be with me so shall thy unfailing love
Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!"