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Date: w. 1798, 1803-4

"He had perceived the presence and the power / Of greatness, and deep feelings had impressed / Great objects on his mind with portraiture / And colour so distinct that on his mind / They lay like substances, and almost seemed / To haunt the bodily sense."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: w. 1805

"Hitherto, / In progress through this Verse, my mind hath look'd / Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven / As her prime Teacher, intercourse with man / Establish'd by the sovereign Intellect, / Who through that bodily Image hath diffus'd / A soul divine which we participate, / A deathless sp...

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"Of the individual Mind that keeps her own / Inviolate retirement, subject there / To Conscience only, and the law supreme / Of that Intelligence which governs all."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"Not Chaos, not / The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, / Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out / By help of dreams--can breed such fear and awe / As fall upon us often when we look / Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-- / My haunt, and the main region of my song."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: w. 1798-1800, 1814

"How exquisitely the individual Mind / (And the progressive powers perhaps no less / Of the whole species) to the external World / Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too-- / Theme this but little heard of among men-- / The external World is fitted to the Mind."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: 1850

Imagination is "reason in her most exalted mood"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: 1850

"This faculty [Imagination/Reason] hath been the feeding source / Of our long labour: we have traced the stream / From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard /Its natal murmur; followed it to light / And open day"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: 1850

"My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's / Internal echo of the imperfect sound; / To both I listened, drawing from them both / A cheerful confidence in things to come"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: 1850

"Yes, I remember when the changeful earth, / And twice five summers on my mind had stamped / The faces of the moving year, even then / I held unconscious intercourse with beauty / Old as creation"

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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Date: 1850

"Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch / Invigorating thoughts from former years; / Might fix the wavering balance of my mind, / And haply meet reproaches too, whose power / May spur me on, in manhood now mature, / To honourable toil."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.