Reflective acts to fix the moral law
  Deep in the conscience, nor of Christian Hope, 85
  Bowing her head before her sister Faith
  As one far mightier), hither I had come,
  Bear witness Truth, endowed with holy powers
  And faculties, whether to work or feel. 
  Oft when the dazzling show no longer new 90
  Had ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit
  My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves,
  And as I paced alone the level fields
  Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime
  With which I had been conversant, the mind 95
  Drooped not; but there into herself returning,
  With prompt rebound seemed fresh as heretofore. 
  At least I more distinctly recognised
  Her native instincts:  let me dare to speak
  A higher language, say that now I felt 100
  What independent solaces were mine,
  To mitigate the injurious sway of place
  Or circumstance, how far soever changed
  In youth, or to be changed in manhood’s prime;
  Or for the few who shall be called to look 105
  On the long shadows in our evening years,
  Ordained precursors to the night of death. 
  As if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained,
  I looked for universal things; perused
  The common countenance of earth and sky:  110
  Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace
  Of that first Paradise whence man was driven;
  And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed
  By the proud name she bears—­the name of Heaven. 
  I called on both to teach me what they might; 115
  Or turning the mind in upon herself
  Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
  And spread them with a wider creeping; felt
  Incumbencies more awful, visitings
  Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul, 120
  That tolerates the indignities of Time,
  And, from the centre of Eternity
  All finite motions overruling, lives
  In glory immutable.  But peace! enough
  Here to record that I was mounting now 125
  To such community with highest truth—­
  A track pursuing, not untrod before,
  From strict analogies by thought supplied
  Or consciousnesses not to be subdued. 
  To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, 130
  Even the loose stones that cover the high-way,
  I gave a moral life:  I saw them feel,
  Or linked them to some feeling:  the great mass
  Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all
  That I beheld respired with inward meaning. 135
  Add that whate’er of Terror or of Love
  Or Beauty, Nature’s daily face put on
  From transitory passion, unto this
  I was as sensitive as waters are
  To the sky’s influence in a kindred