In numerous poems Wordsworth refers to the strong impression made upon him as a youth by the pageantry of nature. In one of them, to which, according to his frequent custom, he gave a prolix title, _Influence of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth_, he thanks the Spirit of the Universe for having from the first dawn of his childhood intertwined for him "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 . . . . . . . . until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart." Observe the vivid, delicate perception of nature in the following description:-- "Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long; And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons:--happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture!--Clear and loud The village clock tolled six--I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.--All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.