quote · Legacy record
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things— With life and nature—purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things— With life and nature—purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Approximate author period: c. 1810 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- William Wordsworth
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1810 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1770–1850)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 246 · printed citation: Wordsworth (The Prelude, Bk. I). · compiler notes excluded
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.