With strong sensations teeming as it did
  Of past and present, such a place must needs
  Have pleased me, seeking knowledge at that time
  Far less than craving power; yet knowledge came, 600
  Sought or unsought, and influxes of power
  Came, of themselves, or at her call derived
  In fits of kindliest apprehensiveness,
  From all sides, when whate’er was in itself
  Capacious found, or seemed to find, in me 605
  A correspondent amplitude of mind;
  Such is the strength and glory of our youth! 
  The human nature unto which I felt
  That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
  Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit 610
  Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
  Of evidence from monuments, erect,
  Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest
  In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
  Of vanished nations, or more clearly drawn 615
  From books and what they picture and record.

    ’Tis true, the history of our native land,
  With those of Greece compared and popular Rome,
  And in our high-wrought modern narratives
  Stript of their harmonising soul, the life 620
  Of manners and familiar incidents,
  Had never much delighted me.  And less
  Than other intellects had mine been used
  To lean upon extrinsic circumstance
  Of record or tradition; but a sense 625
  Of what in the Great City had been done
  And suffered, and was doing, suffering, still,
  Weighed with me, could support the test of thought;
  And, in despite of all that had gone by,
  Or was departing never to return, 630
  There I conversed with majesty and power
  Like independent natures.  Hence the place
  Was thronged with impregnations like the Wilds
  In which my early feelings had been nursed—­
  Bare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks, 635
  And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,
  Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags
  That into music touch the passing wind. 
  Here then my young imagination found
  No uncongenial element; could here 640
  Among new objects serve or give command,
  Even as the heart’s occasions might require,
  To forward reason’s else too scrupulous march. 
  The effect was, still more elevated views
  Of human nature.  Neither vice nor guilt, 645
  Debasement undergone by body or mind,
  Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,
  Misery not lightly passed, but sometimes scanned
  Most feelingly, could overthrow my trust
  In what we may become; induce belief 650
  That I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,