He who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself b… - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams!

Sonnet: To the River Otter

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

I stood in unimaginable trance
And agony that cannot be remembered.