Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace How Nature by extrinsic passion first 545 Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair, And made me love them, may I here omit How other pleasures have been mine, and joys Of subtler origin; how I have felt, Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, 550 Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense Which seem, in their simplicity, to own An intellectual charm; that calm delight Which, if I err not, surely must belong To those first-born affinities that fit 555 Our new existence to existing things, And, in our dawn of being, constitute The bond of union between life and joy. Yes, I remember when the changeful earth, And twice five summers on my mind had stamped 560 The faces of the moving year, even then I held unconscious intercourse with beauty Old as creation, drinking in a pure Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths Of curling mist, or from the level plain 565 Of waters coloured by impending clouds. [o] The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade, And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills 570 Sent welcome notice of the rising moon, How I have stood, to fancies such as these A stranger, linking with the spectacle No conscious memory of a kindred sight, And bringing with me no peculiar sense 575 Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood, Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league Of shining water, gathering as it seemed Through every hair-breadth in that field of light New pleasure like a bee among the flowers. 580