Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.
Ye lowly Cottages in which we dwelt, 500 A ministration of your own was yours!
Can I forget you, being as ye were
So beautiful among the pleasant fields
In which ye stood? or can I here forget
The plain and seemly countenance with which 505 Ye dealt out your plain Comforts? Yet had ye Delights and exultations of your own. Eager and never weary, we pursued Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate
5i'o In square divisions parcelled out, and all With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er, We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head, In strife too humble to be named in verse;9 Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,0 pine or fir 515 Cherry, or maple, sate in close array, And to the Combat, Lu or Whist, led on A thick-ribbed Army, not as in the world Neglected and ungratefully thrown by Even for the very service they had wrought, 520 But husbanded through many a long campaign. Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth, Had dignified, and called to represent 525 The Persons of departed Potentates.1 Oh, with what echoes on the board they fell! Ironic diamonds; Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, A congregation piteously akin! Cheap matter offered they to boyish wit, 530 Those sooty Knaves, precipitated down With scoffs and taunts like Vulcan2 out of heaven; The paramount Ace, a moon in her eclipse, Queens gleaming through their Splendor's last decay, And Monarchs surly at the wrongs sustained 535 By royal visages.3 Meanwhile abroad Incessant rain was falling, or the frost Raged bitterly, with keen and silent tooth; And, interrupting oft that eager game,
9. I.e., ticktacktoe. With his phrasing in this passage, Wordsworth pokes fun at 18th-century poetic diction, which avoided everyday terms by using elaborate paraphrases. 1. The cards have changed their functions in ways that remind us that the first version of The Prelude was begun soon after the downfall of the French monarchy during the Revolution. The 'Potentate' cards?the kings, queens, and jacks?have over time been lost from the pack and so selected 'plebeian,' or commoner, cards have come to be used in their place.
2. Roman god of fire and forge. His mother, Juno, when he was born lame, threw him down from Olympus, the home of the gods. 3. Wordsworth implicitly parallels the boys' card games to the mock-epic description of the aristocratic game of ombre in Pope's The Rape of the Lock 3.37-98.
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33 6 / WILLIA M WORDSWORT H From under Esthwaite's splitting fields of ice The pent-up air, struggling to free itself, Gave out to meadow-grounds and hills, a loud Protracted yelling, like the noise of wolves Howling in Troops along the Bothnic Main.4 Nor, sedulous0 as I have been to trace diligent How Nature by extrinsic passion first Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair And made me love them, may I here omit How other pleasures have been mine, and joys Of subtler origin; how I have felt, Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense Which seem, in their simplicity, to own An intellectual5 charm;?that calm delight Which, if I err not, surely must belong To those first-born0 affinities that fit innate Our new existence to existing things, And, in our dawn of being, constitute The bond of union between life and joy. Yes, I remember when the changeful earth And twice five summers on my mind had stamped The faces of the moving year, even then I held unconscious intercourse with beauty Old as creation, drinking in a pure Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths Of curling mist, or from the level plain Of waters, colored by impending0 clouds. overhanging The sands of Westmorland, the creeks and bays Of Cumbria's0 rocky limits, they can tell Cumberland's How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade, And to the Shepherd's hut on distant hills Sent welcome notice of the rising moon, How I have stood, to fancies such as these A Stranger, linking with the Spectacle No conscious memory of a kindred sight, And bringing with me no peculiar sense Of quietness or peace, yet have I stood, Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league6 Of shining water, gathering, as it seemed, Through every hair-breadth in that field of light, New pleasure, like a bee among the flowers. Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar7 joy Which, through all seasons, on a Child's pursuits Are prompt Attendants; 'mid that giddy bliss Which like a tempest works along the blood And is forgotten: even then I felt Gleams like the flashing of a shield,?the earth And common face of Nature spake to me Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true, By chance collisions and quaint accidents
4. A northern gulf of the Baltic Sea. 6. A distance equal to approximately three miles. 5. Spiritual, as opposed to sense perceptions. 7. Ordinary, commonplace.
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 33 7
590 (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed
Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain Nor profitless, if haply they impressed Collateral0 objects and appearances, secondary Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep 595 Until maturer seasons called them forth To impregnate and to elevate the mind. ?And, if the vulgar joy by its own weight Wearied itself out of the memory, The scenes which were a witness of that joy 6oo Remained, in their substantial lineaments Depicted on the brain, and to the eye Were visible, a daily sight: and thus By the impressive discipline of fear, By pleasure and repeated happiness,
605 So frequently repeated, and by force
Of obscure feelings representative
Of things forgotten; these same scenes so bright,
So beautiful, so majestic in themselves,
Though yet the day was distant, did become
6io Habitually dear; and all their forms And changeful colours by invisible links Were fastened to the affections.0 feelings I began My Story early, not misled, I trust, By an infirmity of love for days 615 Disowned by memory,8 fancying flowers where none, Not even the sweetest, do or can survive For him at least whose dawning day they cheered; Nor will it seem to Thee, O Friend! so prompt In sympathy, that I have lengthened out, 620 With fond and feeble tongue, a tedious tale. Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch Invigorating thoughts from former years; Might fix the wavering balance of my mind, And haply meet reproaches too, whose power 625 May spur me on, in manhood now mature, To honorable toil. Yet should these hopes Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught To understand myself, nor thou to know With better knowledge how the heart was framed 630 Of him thou Iovest, need I dread from thee Harsh judgments, if the Song be loth to quit Those recollected hours that have the charm Of visionary things, those lovely forms And sweet sensations that throw back our life, 635 And almost make remotest infancy A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? One end at least hath been attained?my mind Hath been revived; and, if this genial9 mood Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
