mood 140
  Of passion; was obedient as a lute
  That waits upon the touches of the wind. 
  Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich—­
  I had a world about me—­’twas my own;
  I made it, for it only lived to me, 145
  And to the God who sees into the heart. 
  Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed
  By outward gestures and by visible looks: 
  Some called it madness—­so indeed it was,
  If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy, 150
  If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
  To inspiration, sort with such a name;
  If prophecy be madness; if things viewed
  By poets in old time, and higher up
  By the first men, earth’s first inhabitants, 155
  May in these tutored days no more be seen
  With undisordered sight.  But leaving this,
  It was no madness, for the bodily eye
  Amid my strongest workings evermore
  Was searching out the lines of difference 160
  As they lie hid in all external forms,
  Near or remote, minute or vast, an eye
  Which from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf,
  To the broad ocean and the azure heavens
  Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars, 165
  Could find no surface where its power might sleep;
  Which spake perpetual logic to my soul,
  And by an unrelenting agency
  Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.

    And here, O Friend! have I retraced my life 170
  Up to an eminence, and told a tale
  Of matters which not falsely may be called
  The glory of my youth.  Of genius, power,
  Creation and divinity itself
  I have been speaking, for my theme has been 175
  What passed within me.  Not of outward things
  Done visibly for other minds, words, signs,
  Symbols or actions, but of my own heart
  Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind. 
  O Heavens! how awful is the might of souls, 180
  And what they do within themselves while yet
  The yoke of earth is new to them, the world
  Nothing but a wild field where they were sown. 
  This is, in truth, heroic argument,
  This genuine prowess, which I wished to touch 185
  With hand however weak, but in the main
  It lies far hidden from the reach of words. 
  Points have we all of us within our souls
  Where all stand single; this I feel, and make
  Breathings for incommunicable powers; 190
  But is not each a memory to himself? 
  And, therefore, now that we must quit this theme,
  I am not heartless, for there’s not a man
  That lives who hath not known his god-like hours,
  And feels not what an empire we inherit 195
  As natural beings in the strength of Nature.