Disturbed With the Joy of Elevated Thoughts

Rätikon mountain range in Austria. Image by Böhringer Friedrich

I must confess that I have been hitherto unfamiliar with the poetry of William Wordsworth, but my mind was blown this morning as I came across this passage of his, quoted by Karen Armstrong in The Case for God.  It quite simply set my heart on fire.  I would point to poetry like this if someone asked me to give my definition of the term “God”:

…I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

2 thoughts on “Disturbed With the Joy of Elevated Thoughts

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