Then, last wish,

My last and favourite aspiration! then

I yearn towards some philosophic Song

Of Truth that cherishes our daily life;

With meditations passionate from deep

Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse

Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre;

But from this awful burthen I full soon

Take refuge, and beguile myself with trust

That mellower years will bring a riper mind

And clearer insight.

(i. 229–39)

Coleridge wanted to believe for reasons of his own, and he persuaded Wordsworth also to believe, that a young poet's gradual development toward self-consciousness was his major theme, and that its truth for morals was gratitude to nature for having made him what he was. With that description of the poet's work came the burden of a special project, of which Wordsworth was the destined executor – a theodicy, both metaphysical and historical in scope, whose leading evidences would come from the receptive and infinitely associable mind of the poet. … But his friend's ambitions were mismatched to his own talents. When you have disposed of the philosophy of The Prelude, you have not disposed of Wordsworth but only of a notion someone once had of him, which he unfortunately came to share. The long poem he withheld for most of his life is a record of accidents, to which the author hoped to give coherence.