Covert0 of the Willow-tree; shelter
There, in her mooring-place, I left my Bark,? And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
390 And serious mood; but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
6. To direct his boat in a straight line, the rower moves farther out, the black peak rises into his (sitting facing the stern of the boat) has fixed his altering angle of vision and seems to stride closer eye on a point on the ridge above the nearby shore, with each stroke of the oars. which blocks out the landscape behind. As he
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 333
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
395 Or blank desertion. No familiar Shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or Sky, no colours of green fields, But huge and mighty Forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
400 By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting Motion! not in vain,
405 By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn Of Childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human Soul, Not with the mean' and vulgar' works of man, inferior / commonplace But with high objects, with enduring things,
410 With life and nature, purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear; until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
415 Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days When vapours, rolling down the valley, made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
420 When, by the margin of the trembling Lake, Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it, in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long.
425 ?And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile, The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons,?happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me
430 It was a time of rapture!?Clear and loud The village Clock toll'd six?I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.?All shod with steel,? i.e., on skates We hissed along the polished ice, in games 435 Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,?the resounding horn, The Pack loud-chiming and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din 440 Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars, 445 Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
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33 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay,?or sportively Glanced sideway,7 leaving the tumultous throng To cut across the reflex0 of a star That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me?even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal0 round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,0 Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.
Ye presences of Nature, in the sky, And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills! And Souls8 of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye, through many a year, Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, Impressed upon all forms the characters0 Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work0 like a sea?
Not uselessly employed, Might I pursue this theme through every change Of exercise and play, to which the year Did summon us in his delightful round.
?We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours, Nor saw a Band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod. I could record with no reluctant voice The woods of Autumn, and their hazel bowers With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong And unreproved enchantment led us on, By rocks and pools shut out from every star All the green summer, to forlorn cascades Among the windings hid of mountain brooks. ?Unfading recollections! at this hour The heart is almost mine with which I felt, From some hill-top on sunny afternoons, The paper-Kite, high among fleecy clouds,
reflection
daily succession
signs
seethe
7. Moved off obliquely. 02) and to plural 'Presences' and 'Souls' animat8. Wordsworth refers both to a single 'Spirit' or ing the various parts of the universe. 'Soul' of the universe as a whole (e.g., lines 401?
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 335
495 Pull at her rein, like an impatient Courser;0 swift horse
Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,
Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
