Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/70

48 From sources inexhaustible, poured forth

To feed the spirit of religious love

In which I walked with Nature. But let this

Be not forgotten, that I still retained

My first creative sensibility;

That by the regular action of the world

My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power

Abode with me; a forming hand, at times

Rebellious, acting in a devious mood;

A local spirit of his own, at war

With general tendency, but, for the most,

Subservient strictly to external things

With which it communed. An auxiliar light

Came from my mind, which on the setting sun

Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds,

The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on

Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed

A like dominion, and the midnight storm

Grew darker in the presence of my eye:

Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence,

And hence my transport.

Nor should this, perchance,

Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved

The exercise and produce of a toil,

Than analytic industry to me