Note 640 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)
Reading edition
A. Gilchrist's Life of W. Blake, i. 303.
It was not only that Wordsworth was at one with Blake in his intense feeling of the mysterious loveliness of nature. There is also an occasional vein of mysticism in his poetry. Thus it is observed in Ch. Wordsworth's Memoirs of his Life (p. 111), that his Expostulation and Reply (1798) was a favourite with the Quakers. It is the poem in which these verses occur:—
'Nor less I deem that there are powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed these minds of ours In a wise passiveness. Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?'—Poems, iv. 180.