began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but I
believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as
that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those
feelings, will be found to carry along with them a _purpose_. If in
this opinion I am mistaken I can have little right to the name of a
Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be
attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a
man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility had
also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling
are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the
representatives of all our past feelings; and as by contemplating
the relation of these general representatives to each other, we
discover what is really important to men, so by the repetition and
continuance of this act feelings connected with important subjects
will be nourished, till at length, if we be originally possessed of
much organic sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced that
by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits we
shall describe objects and utter sentiments of such a nature and in
such connection with each other, that the understanding of the being
to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of
association, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, his
taste exalted, and his affections ameliorated.

I have said that each of these poems has a purpose. I have also
informed my Reader what this purpose will be found principally to be:
namely to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are
associated in a state of excitement. But speaking in less general
language, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when
agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature. This