noon
Nursed early in the lap of Romance , enamoured of the wild and the adventurous , the commonplaces of life were to me inexpressibly tame and joyless . And yet indolence , which belongs to the poetical character , was more inviting than that eager and uncontemplative action which can alone wring enterprise from life . Meditation was my natural element . I loved to spend the noon reclined by some shady stream , and in a half sleep to shape images from the glancing sunbeams . A dim and unreal order of philosophy , that belongs to our nation , was my favourite intellectual pursuit ; and I sought amongst the Obscure and the Recondite the variety and emotion I could not find in the Familiar . Thus constantly watching the operations of the inner mind , it occurred to me at last that sleep having its own world , but as yet a rude and fragmentary one , it might be possible to shape from its chaos all those combinations of beauty , of power , of glory , and of love , which were denied to me in the world in which my frame walked and had its being . So soon as this idea came upon me , I nursed and cherished and mused over it , till I found that the imagination began to effect the miracle I desired .