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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 481

 
 
William Wordsworth. (1770–1850) (continued)
 
5060
    One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
          The Excursion.Book iv.
5061
    Spires whose “silent finger points to heaven.” 1
          The Excursion.Book vi.
5062
    Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed,—render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
          The Excursion.Book vi.
5063
    And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory images and precious thoughts
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
          The Excursion.Book vii.
5064
    Wisdom married to immortal verse. 2
          The Excursion.Book vii.
5065
    A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident to-morrows.
          The Excursion.Book vii.
5066
    The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
          The Excursion.Book ix.
5067
    By happy chance we saw
A twofold image: on a grassy bank
A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same! 3
          The Excursion.Book ix.
5068
    The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
          Laodamia.
 
Note 1.
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Friend, No. 14. [back]
Note 2.
See Milton, Quotation 297. [back]
Note 3.
Another and the same.—Darwin: The Botanic Garden. [back]