in ‘The Prelude’, together.  These are naturally followed by ’Nutting’—­a poem intended for ‘The Prelude’, but afterwards excluded, as inappropriate.  The five poems referring to “Lucy” are placed in sequence, and the same is done with the four “Matthew” poems.  A small group of four poems follows appropriately, viz.  ‘To a Sexton’, ‘The Danish Boy’, ‘Lucy Gray’, and ‘Ruth’; while the Fenwick note almost necessitates our placing the ‘Poet’s Epitaph’ immediately after the Lines ‘Written in Germany’; and, with Wordsworth’s life at Goslar, we naturally associate five things—­the cold winter, ‘The Prelude’, the “Lucy” and the “Matthew” poems, and the ’Poet’s Epitaph’.—­Ed.

* * * * *

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM

[This extract is reprinted from “THE FRIEND."[A]]

Composed 1799.—­Published 1809

It was included by Wordsworth among the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”—­Ed.

  Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! 
  Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought! 
  And giv’st [1] to forms and images a breath
  And everlasting motion! not in vain,
  By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn 5
  Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
  The passions that build up our human soul;
  Not [2] with the mean and vulgar works of Man: 
  But with high objects, with enduring things,
  With life and nature:  purifying thus 10
  The elements of feeling and of thought,
  And sanctifying by such discipline
  Both pain and fear,—­until we recognise
  A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

    Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 15
  With stinted kindness.  In November days,
  When vapours rolling down the valleys [3] made
  A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
  At noon; and ’mid the calm of summer nights,
  When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 20
  Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went [4]
  In solitude, such intercourse was mine: 
  Mine was it in the fields [5] both day and night,
  And by the waters, all the summer long. 
  And in the frosty season, when the sun 25
  Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
  The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, [6]
  I heeded not the summons:  happy time
  It was indeed for all of us; for me [7]
  It was a time of rapture!  Clear and loud 30
  The village-clock tolled six—­I wheeled about,
  Proud and exulting like an untired horse
  That cares not for his home. [8]—­All shod with steel
  We hissed along the polished ice, in games
  Confederate, imitative of the chase 35