"Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace / How Nature by extrinsic passion first / Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair, / And made me love them, may I here omit / How other pleasures have been mine, and joys / Of subtler origin."
— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Edward Moxon
Date
1850
Metaphor
"Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace / How Nature by extrinsic passion first / Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair, / And made me love them, may I here omit / How other pleasures have been mine, and joys / Of subtler origin."
Metaphor in Context
Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace
How Nature by extrinsic passion first
Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
And made me love them, may I here omit
How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,
Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
An intellectual charm; that calm delight
Which, if I err not, surely must belong
To those first-born affinities that fit
Our new existence to existing things,
And, in our dawn of being, constitute
The bond of union between life and joy.
How Nature by extrinsic passion first
Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair,
And made me love them, may I here omit
How other pleasures have been mine, and joys
Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,
Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense
Which seem, in their simplicity, to own
An intellectual charm; that calm delight
Which, if I err not, surely must belong
To those first-born affinities that fit
Our new existence to existing things,
And, in our dawn of being, constitute
The bond of union between life and joy.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem; By William Wordsworth (London: Edward Moxon, 1850). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
09/29/2006
