op, dividing a plantation of oak, hazel, and ash, from the firs that
crown the summit. These firs, which are larch and spruce, seem all of
this century. The top of the crag may have been bare when Wordsworth
lived at Hawkshead. But at the foot of the path along the dividing wall
there are a few (probably older) trees; and a solitary walk beneath
them, at noon or dusk, is almost as suggestive to the imagination, as
repose under the yews of Borrowdale, listening to "the mountain flood"
on Glaramara. There one may still hear the bleak music from the old
stone wall, and "the noise of wood and water," while the loud dry wind
whistles through the underwood, or moans amid the fir trees of the Crag,
on the summit of which there is a "blasted hawthorn" tree. It may be
difficult now to determine the precise spot to which the boy Wordsworth
climbed on that eventful day--afterwards so significant to him, and from
the events of which, he says, he drank "as at a fountain"--but I think
it may have been to one or other of these two crags. (See, however, Mr.
Rawnsley's conjecture in Note V. in the Appendix to this volume, p.
391.)--Ed.]

* * * * *

BOOK THIRTEENTH

IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED--concluded.

From Nature doth emotion come, and moods
Of calmness equally are Nature's gift:
This is her glory; these two attributes
Are sister horns that constitute her strength.
Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange 5
Of peace and excitation, finds in her
His best and purest friend; from her receives
That energy by which he seeks the truth,
From her that happy stillness of the mind
Which fits him to receive it when unsought. [A] 10

Such benefit the humblest intellects
Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine
To speak, what I myself have known and felt;
Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired
By gratitude, and confidence in truth. 15
Long time in search of knowledge did I range
The field of human life, in heart and mind
Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now
To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in vain
I had been taught to reverence a Power 20
That is the visible quality and shape
And image of right reason; that matures
Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
To no impatient or fallacious hopes,