‘In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretch’d On the soft grass through half a summer’s day, With music lulled his indolent repose: And in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetch’d, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless youth, who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. The nightly hunter, lifting up his eyes Towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer, who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport: And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs Across the lawn and through the darksome grove, (Nor unaccompanied with tuneful notes By echo multiplied from rock or cave), Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heavens, When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked His thirst from rill, or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sun beams, upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet Oreads, sporting visibly. The zephyrs fanning as they passed their wings Lacked not for love fair objects, whom they wooed With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque, Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth In the low vale, or on steep mountain side: And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat’s depending beard; These were the lurking satyrs, a wild brood Of gamesome Deities! or Pan himself, The simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring God.’ The foregoing is one of a succession of splendid passages equally enriched with philosophy and poetry, tracing the fictions of Eastern mythology to the immediate intercourse of the imagination with Nature, and to the habitual propensity of the human mind to endow the outward forms of being with life and conscious motion. With this expansive and animating principle, Mr. Wordsworth has forcibly, but somewhat severely, contrasted the cold, narrow, lifeless spirit of modern philosophy: