Read the excerpt from "A Defence of Poetry,”We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing unbidden.
A
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blastB
To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the lastC
We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the dayD
It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free