of which there is a “blasted hawthorn” tree.  It may be difficult now to determine the precise spot to which the boy Wordsworth climbed on that eventful day—­afterwards so significant to him, and from the events of which, he says, he drank “as at a fountain”—­but I think it may have been to one or other of these two crags. (See, however, Mr. Rawnsley’s conjecture in Note V. in the Appendix to this volume, p. 391.)—­Ed.]

* * * * *

BOOK THIRTEENTH

IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED—­concluded.

  From Nature doth emotion come, and moods
  Of calmness equally are Nature’s gift: 
  This is her glory; these two attributes
  Are sister horns that constitute her strength. 
  Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange 5
  Of peace and excitation, finds in her
  His best and purest friend; from her receives
  That energy by which he seeks the truth,
  From her that happy stillness of the mind
  Which fits him to receive it when unsought. [A] 10

    Such benefit the humblest intellects
  Partake of, each in their degree; ’tis mine
  To speak, what I myself have known and felt;
  Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired
  By gratitude, and confidence in truth. 15
  Long time in search of knowledge did I range
  The field of human life, in heart and mind
  Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now
  To re-appear, ’twas proved that not in vain
  I had been taught to reverence a Power 20
  That is the visible quality and shape
  And image of right reason; that matures
  Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
  To no impatient or fallacious hopes,
  No heat of passion or excessive zeal, 25
  No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
  Of self-applauding intellect; but trains
  To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
  Holds up before the mind intoxicate
  With present objects, and the busy dance 30
  Of things that pass away, a temperate show
  Of objects that endure; and by this course
  Disposes her, when over-fondly set
  On throwing off incumbrances, to seek
  In man, and in the frame of social life, 35
  Whate’er there is desirable and good
  Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form
  And function, or, through strict vicissitude
  Of life and death, revolving.  Above all
  Were re-established now those watchful thoughts 40
  Which, seeing little worthy or sublime
  In what the Historian’s pen so much delights
  To blazon—­power and energy detached
  From moral purpose—­early tutored me
  To look with feelings of fraternal love 45
  Upon the unassuming things that hold
  A silent station in this beauteous world.