<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=540158" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Prelude. (book V )</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHEN Contemplation, like the night-calm felt <br>Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep <br>Into the soul its tranquillising power, <br>Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man, <br>Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes <br>That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be, <br>Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine <br>Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved <br>Through length of time, by patient exercise <br>Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is <br>That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto, <br>In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked <br>Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven <br>As her prime teacher, intercourse with man <br>Established by the sovereign Intellect, <br>Who through that bodily image hath diffused, <br>As might appear to the eye of fleeting time, <br>A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought, <br>For commerce of thy nature with herself, <br>Things that aspire to unconquerable life; <br>And yet we feel--we cannot choose but feel-- <br>That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart <br>It gives, to think that our immortal being <br>No more shall need such garments; and yet man, <br>As long as he shall be the child of earth, <br>Might almost &quot;weep to have&quot; what he may lose, <br>Nor be himself extinguished, but survive, <br>Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate. <br>A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,-- <br>Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes <br>Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch <br>Her pleasant habitations, and dry up <br>Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare, <br>Yet would the living Presence still subsist <br>Victorious, and composure would ensue, <br>And kindlings like the morning--presage sure <br>Of day returning and of life revived. <br>But all the meditations of mankind, <br>Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth <br>By reason built, or passion, which itself <br>Is highest reason in a soul sublime; <br>The consecrated works of Bard and Sage, <br>Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men, <br>Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes; <br>Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind <br>Some element to stamp her image on <br>In nature somewhat nearer to her own? <br>Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad <br>Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">One day, when from my lips a like complaint <br>Had fallen in presence of a studious friend, <br>He with a smile made answer, that in truth <br>'Twas going far to seek disquietude; <br>But on the front of his reproof confessed <br>That he himself had oftentimes given way <br>To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told, <br>That once in the stillness of a summer's noon, <br>While I was seated in a rocky cave <br>By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced, <br>The famous history of the errant knight <br>Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts <br>Beset me, and to height unusual rose, <br>While listlessly I sate, and, having closed <br>The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea. <br>On poetry and geometric truth, <br>And their high privilege of lasting life, <br>From all internal injury exempt, <br>I mused; upon these chiefly: and at length, <br>My senses yielding to the sultry air, <br>Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream. <br>I saw before me stretched a boundless plain <br>Of sandy wilderness, all black and void, <br>And as I looked around, distress and fear <br>Came creeping over me, when at my side, <br>Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared <br>Upon a dromedary, mounted high. <br>He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes: <br>A lance he bore, and underneath one arm <br>A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell <br>Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight <br>Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide <br>Was present, one who with unerring skill <br>Would through the desert lead me; and while yet <br>I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight <br>Which the new-comer carried through the waste <br>Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone <br>(To give it in the language of the dream) <br>Was &quot;Euclid's Elements,&quot; and &quot;This,&quot; said he, <br>&quot;Is something of more worth;&quot; and at the word <br>Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, <br>In colour so resplendent, with command <br>That I should hold it to my ear. I did so, <br>And heard that instant in an unknown tongue, <br>Which yet I understood, articulate sounds, <br>A loud prophetic blast of harmony; <br>An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold <br>Destruction to the children of the earth <br>By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased <br>The song, than the Arab with calm look declared <br>That all would come to pass of which the voice 0 <br>Had given forewarning, and that he himself <br>Was going then to bury those two books: <br>The one that held acquaintance with the stars, <br>And wedded soul to soul in purest bond <br>Of reason, undisturbed by space or time; <br>The other that was a god, yea many gods, <br>Had voices more than all the winds, with power <br>To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe, <br>Through every clime, the heart of human kind. <br>While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, <br>I wondered not, although I plainly saw <br>The one to be a stone, the other a shell; <br>Nor doubted once but that they both were books, <br>Having a perfect faith in all that passed. <br>Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt <br>To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed <br>To share his enterprise, he hurried on <br>Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen, <br>For oftentimes he cast a backward look, <br>Grasping his twofold treasure.--Lance in rest, <br>He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now <br>He, to my fancy, had become the knight <br>Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight, <br>But was an Arab of the desert too; <br>Of these was neither, and was both at once. <br>His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed; <br>And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes <br>Saw, over half the wilderness diffused, <br>A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause: <br>&quot;It is,&quot; said he, &quot;the waters of the deep <br>Gathering upon us;&quot; quickening then the pace <br>Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode, <br>He left me: I called after him aloud; <br>He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge <br>Still in his grasp, before me, full in view, <br>Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, <br>With the fleet waters of a drowning world <br>In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror, <br>And saw the sea before me, and the book, <br>In which I had been reading, at my side. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Full often, taking from the world of sleep <br>This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld, <br>This semi-Quixote, I to him have given <br>A substance, fancied him a living man, <br>A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed <br>By love and feeling, and internal thought <br>Protracted among endless solitudes; <br>Have shaped him wandering upon this quest! <br>Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt <br>Reverence was due to a being thus employed; <br>And thought that, in the blind and awful lair <br>Of such a madness, reason did lie couched. <br>Enow there are on earth to take in charge <br>Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves, <br>Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear; <br>Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say, <br>Contemplating in soberness the approach <br>Of an event so dire, by signs in earth <br>Or heaven made manifest, that I could share <br>That maniac's fond anxiety, and go <br>Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least <br>Me hath such strong entrancement overcome, <br>When I have held a volume in my hand, <br>Poor earthly casket of immortal verse, <br>Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great and benign, indeed, must be the power <br>Of living nature, which could thus so long <br>Detain me from the best of other guides <br>And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised, <br>Even in the time of lisping infancy; <br>And later down, in prattling childhood even, <br>While I was travelling back among those days, <br>How could I ever play an ingrate's part? <br>Once more should I have made those bowers resound, <br>By intermingling strains of thankfulness <br>With their own thoughtless melodies; at least <br>It might have well beseemed me to repeat <br>Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again, <br>In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale <br>That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now. <br>O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul, <br>Think not that I could pass along untouched <br>By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak? <br>Why call upon a few weak words to say <br>What is already written in the hearts <br>Of all that breathe?--what in the path of all <br>Drops daily from the tongue of every child, <br>Wherever man is found? The trickling tear <br>Upon the cheek of listening Infancy <br>Proclaims it, and the insuperable look <br>That drinks as if it never could be full. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That portion of my story I shall leave <br>There registered: whatever else of power <br>Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be <br>Peculiar to myself, let that remain <br>Where still it works, though hidden from all search <br>Among the depths of time. Yet is it just <br>That here, in memory of all books which lay <br>Their sure foundations in the heart of man, <br>Whether by native prose, or numerous verse, 0 <br>That in the name of all inspired souls-- <br>From Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice <br>That roars along the bed of Jewish song, <br>And that more varied and elaborate, <br>Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake <br>Our shores in England,--from those loftiest notes <br>Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made <br>For cottagers and spinners at the wheel, <br>And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs, <br>Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes, <br>Food for the hungry ears of little ones, <br>And of old men who have survived their joys-- <br>'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, <br>And of the men that framed them, whether known <br>Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, <br>That I should here assert their rights, attest <br>Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce <br>Their benediction; speak of them as Powers <br>For ever to be hallowed; only less, <br>For what we are and what we may become, <br>Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, <br>Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop <br>To transitory themes; yet I rejoice, <br>And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out <br>Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared <br>Safe from an evil which these days have laid <br>Upon the children of the land, a pest <br>That might have dried me up, body and soul. <br>This verse is dedicate to Nature's self, <br>And things that teach as Nature teaches: then, <br>Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where, <br>Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend! <br>If in the season of unperilous choice, <br>In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales <br>Rich with indigenous produce, open ground <br>Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will, <br>We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed, <br>Each in his several melancholy walk <br>Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed, <br>Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude; <br>Or rather like a stalled ox debarred <br>From touch of growing grass, that may not taste <br>A flower till it have yielded up its sweets <br>A prelibation to the mower's scythe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold the parent hen amid her brood, <br>Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part <br>And straggle from her presence, still a brood, <br>And she herself from the maternal bond <br>Still undischarged; yet doth she little more <br>Than move with them in tenderness and love, <br>A centre to the circle which they make; <br>And now and then, alike from need of theirs <br>And call of her own natural appetites, <br>She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food, <br>Which they partake at pleasure. Early died <br>My honoured Mother, she who was the heart <br>And hinge of all our learnings and our loves: <br>She left us destitute, and, as we might, <br>Trooping together. Little suits it me <br>To break upon the sabbath of her rest <br>With any thought that looks at others' blame; <br>Nor would I praise her but in perfect love. <br>Hence am I checked: but let me boldly say, <br>In gratitude, and for the sake of truth, <br>Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught, <br>Fetching her goodness rather from times past, <br>Than shaping novelties for times to come, <br>Had no presumption, no such jealousy, <br>Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust <br>Our nature, but had virtual faith that He <br>Who fills the mother's breast with innocent milk, <br>Doth also for our nobler part provide, <br>Under His great correction and control, <br>As innocent instincts, and as innocent food; <br>Or draws, for minds that are left free to trust <br>In the simplicities of opening life, <br>Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds. <br>This was her creed, and therefore she was pure <br>From anxious fear of error or mishap, <br>And evil, overweeningly so called; <br>Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes, <br>Nor selfish with unnecessary cares, <br>Nor with impatience from the season asked <br>More than its timely produce; rather loved <br>The hours for what they are, than from regard <br>Glanced on their promises in restless pride. <br>Such was she--not from faculties more strong <br>Than others have, but from the times, perhaps, <br>And spot in which she lived, and through a grace <br>Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness, <br>A heart that found benignity and hope, <br>Being itself benign. <br>My drift I fear <br>Is scarcely obvious; but, that common sense <br>May try this modern system by its fruits, <br>Leave let me take to place before her sight <br>A specimen pourtrayed with faithful hand. <br>Full early trained to worship seemliness, <br>This model of a child is never known <br>To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath 0 <br>Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er <br>As generous as a fountain; selfishness <br>May not come near him, nor the little throng <br>Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path; <br>The wandering beggars propagate his name, <br>Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun, <br>And natural or supernatural fear, <br>Unless it leap upon him in a dream, <br>Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see <br>How arch his notices, how nice his sense <br>Of the ridiculous; not blind is he <br>To the broad follies of the licensed world, <br>Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd, <br>And can read lectures upon innocence; <br>A miracle of scientific lore, <br>Ships he can guide across the pathless sea, <br>And tell you all their cunning; he can read <br>The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; <br>He knows the policies of foreign lands; <br>Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, <br>The whole world over, tight as beads of dew <br>Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; <br>All things are put to question; he must live <br>Knowing that he grows wiser every day <br>Or else not live at all, and seeing too <br>Each little drop of wisdom as it falls <br>Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: <br>For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, <br>Pity the tree.--Poor human vanity, <br>Wert thou extinguished, little would be left <br>Which he could truly love; but how escape? <br>For, ever as a thought of purer birth <br>Rises to lead him toward a better clime, <br>Some intermeddler still is on the watch <br>To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray, <br>Within the pinfold of his own conceit. <br>Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find <br>The playthings, which her love designed for him, <br>Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers <br>Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. <br>Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap <br>Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat <br>Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, <br>And Sabra in the forest with St. George! <br>The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap <br>One precious gain, that he forgets himself. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">These mighty workmen of our later age, <br>Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged <br>The froward chaos of futurity, <br>Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill <br>To manage books, and things, and make them act <br>On infant minds as surely as the sun <br>Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time, <br>The guides and wardens of our faculties, <br>Sages who in their prescience would control <br>All accidents, and to the very road <br>Which they have fashioned would confine us down, <br>Like engines; when will their presumption learn, <br>That in the unreasoning progress of the world <br>A wiser spirit is at work for us, <br>A better eye than theirs, most prodigal <br>Of blessings, and most studious of our good, <br>Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs <br>And islands of Winander!--many a time <br>At evening, when the earliest stars began <br>To move along the edges of the hills, <br>Rising or setting, would he stand alone <br>Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands <br>Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth <br>Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, <br>Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, <br>That they might answer him; and they would shout <br>Across the watery vale, and shout again, <br>Responsive to his call, with quivering peals, <br>And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud, <br>Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild <br>Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause <br>Of silence came and baffled his best skill, <br>Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung <br>Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise <br>Has carried far into his heart the voice <br>Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene <br>Would enter unawares into his mind, <br>With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, <br>Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received <br>Into the bosom of the steady lake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">This Boy was taken from his mates, and died <br>In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. <br>Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale <br>Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs <br>Upon a slope above the village school, <br>And through that churchyard when my way has led <br>On summer evenings, I believe that there <br>A long half hour together I have stood <br>Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies! <br>Even now appears before the mind's clear eye <br>That self-same village church; I see her sit <br>(The throned Lady whom erewhile we hailed) 0 <br>On her green hill, forgetful of this Boy <br>Who slumbers at her feet,--forgetful, too, <br>Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves, <br>And listening only to the gladsome sounds <br>That, from the rural school ascending, play <br>Beneath her and about her. May she long <br>Behold a race of young ones like to those <br>With whom I herded!--(easily, indeed, <br>We might have fed upon a fatter soil <br>Of arts and letters--but be that forgiven)-- <br>A race of real children; not too wise, <br>Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh, <br>And bandied up and down by love and hate; <br>Not unresentful where self-justified; <br>Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy; <br>Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds; <br>Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft <br>Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight <br>Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding not <br>In happiness to the happiest upon earth. <br>Simplicity in habit, truth in speech, <br>Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds; <br>May books and Nature be their early joy! <br>And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name-- <br>Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well do I call to mind the very week <br>When I was first intrusted to the care <br>Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores, <br>And brooks were like a dream of novelty <br>To my half-infant thoughts; that very week, <br>While I was roving up and down alone, <br>Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross <br>One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears, <br>Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite's Lake: <br>Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom <br>Appeared distinctly on the opposite shore <br>A heap of garments, as if left by one <br>Who might have there been bathing. Long I watched, <br>But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake <br>Grew dark with all the shadows on its breast, <br>And, now and then, a fish up-leaping snapped <br>The breathless stillness. The succeeding day, <br>Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale <br>Drew to the spot an anxious crowd; some looked <br>In passive expectation from the shore, <br>While from a boat others hung o'er the deep, <br>Sounding with grappling irons and long poles. <br>At last, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene <br>Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright <br>Rose, with his ghastly face, a spectre shape <br>Of terror; yet no soul-debasing fear, <br>Young as I was, a child not nine years old, <br>Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen <br>Such sights before, among the shining streams <br>Of faery land, the forest of romance. <br>Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle <br>With decoration of ideal grace; <br>A dignity, a smoothness, like the works <br>Of Grecian art, and purest poesy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A precious treasure had I long possessed, <br>A little yellow, canvas-covered book, <br>A slender abstract of the Arabian tales; <br>And, from companions in a new abode, <br>When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine <br>Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry-- <br>That there were four large volumes, laden all <br>With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth, <br>A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly, <br>With one not richer than myself, I made <br>A covenant that each should lay aside <br>The moneys he possessed, and hoard up more, <br>Till our joint savings had amassed enough <br>To make this book our own. Through several months, <br>In spite of all temptation, we preserved <br>Religiously that vow; but firmness failed, <br>Nor were we ever masters of our wish. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when thereafter to my father's house <br>The holidays returned me, there to find <br>That golden store of books which I had left, <br>What joy was mine! How often in the course <br>Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind <br>Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish, <br>For a whole day together, have I lain <br>Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream, <br>On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun, <br>And there have read, devouring as I read, <br>Defrauding the day's glory, desperate! <br>Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach, <br>Such as an idler deals with in his shame, <br>I to the sport betook myself again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, <br>And o'er the heart of man; invisibly <br>It comes, to works of unreproved delight, <br>And tendency benign, directing those <br>Who care not, know not, think not, what they do. <br>The tales that charm away the wakeful night <br>In Araby, romances; legends penned <br>For solace by dim light of monkish lamps; <br>Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised <br>By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun 0 <br>By the dismantled warrior in old age, <br>Out of the bowels of those very schemes <br>In which his youth did first extravagate; <br>These spread like day, and something in the shape <br>Of these will live till man shall be no more. <br>Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours, <br>And 'they must' have their food. Our childhood sits, <br>Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne <br>That hath more power than all the elements. <br>I guess not what this tells of Being past, <br>Nor what it augurs of the life to come; <br>But so it is; and, in that dubious hour-- <br>That twilight--when we first begin to see <br>This dawning earth, to recognise, expect, <br>And, in the long probation that ensues, <br>The time of trial, ere we learn to live <br>In reconcilement with our stinted powers; <br>To endure this state of meagre vassalage, <br>Unwilling to forego, confess, submit, <br>Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows <br>To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed <br>And humbled down--oh! then we feel, we feel, <br>We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then, <br>Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then, <br>Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape <br>Philosophy will call you: 'then' we feel <br>With what, and how great might ye are in league, <br>Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed, <br>An empire, a possession,--ye whom time <br>And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom <br>Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay, <br>Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights, <br>Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Relinquishing this lofty eminence <br>For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract <br>Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross <br>In progress from their native continent <br>To earth and human life, the Song might dwell <br>On that delightful time of growing youth, <br>When craving for the marvellous gives way <br>To strengthening love for things that we have seen; <br>When sober truth and steady sympathies, <br>Offered to notice by less daring pens, <br>Take firmer hold of us, and words themselves <br>Move us with conscious pleasure. <br>I am sad <br>At thought of rapture now for ever flown; <br>Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad <br>To think of, to read over, many a page, <br>Poems withal of name, which at that time <br>Did never fail to entrance me, and are now <br>Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre <br>Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years <br>Or less I might have seen, when first my mind <br>With conscious pleasure opened to the charm <br>Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet <br>For their own 'sakes', a passion, and a power; <br>And phrases pleased me chosen for delight, <br>For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads <br>Yet unfrequented, while the morning light <br>Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad <br>With a dear friend, and for the better part <br>Of two delightful hours we strolled along <br>By the still borders of the misty lake, <br>Repeating favourite verses with one voice, <br>Or conning more, as happy as the birds <br>That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad, <br>Lifted above the ground by airy fancies, <br>More bright than madness or the dreams of wine; <br>And, though full oft the objects of our love <br>Were false, and in their splendour overwrought, <br>Yet was there surely then no vulgar power <br>Working within us,--nothing less, in truth, <br>Than that most noble attribute of man, <br>Though yet untutored and inordinate, <br>That wish for something loftier, more adorned, <br>Than is the common aspect, daily garb, <br>Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds <br>Of exultation echoed through the groves! <br>For, images, and sentiments, and words, <br>And everything encountered or pursued <br>In that delicious world of poesy, <br>Kept holiday, a never-ending show, <br>With music, incense, festival, and flowers! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here must we pause: this only let me add, <br>From heart-experience, and in humblest sense <br>Of modesty, that he, who in his youth <br>A daily wanderer among woods and fields <br>With living Nature hath been intimate, <br>Not only in that raw unpractised time <br>Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are, <br>By glittering verse; but further, doth receive, <br>In measure only dealt out to himself, <br>Knowledge and increase of enduring joy <br>From the great Nature that exists in works <br>Of mighty Poets. Visionary power <br>Attends the motions of the viewless winds, <br>Embodied in the mystery of words: <br>There, darkness makes abode, and all the host <br>Of shadowy things work endless changes,--there, <br>As in a mansion like their proper home, 0 <br>Even forms and substances are circumfused <br>By that transparent veil with light divine, <br>And, through the turnings intricate of verse, <br>Present themselves as objects recognised, <br>In flashes, and with glory not their own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Wordsworth">William Wordsworth</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=540158" data-title="The Prelude. (book V ) de William Wordsworth" data-description="WHEN Contemplation, like the night-calm felt Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep Into the soul its tranquillising power, Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man, Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes That tho..."></div> </div> </div>

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