260 Working but in alliance with the works Which it beholds.5?Such, verily, is the first Poetic spirit of our human life, By uniform control of after years In most abated or suppressed, in some,
265 Through every change of growth and of decay, Preeminent till death.
From early days, Beginning not long after that first time In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch, I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart,6
270 I have endeavoured to display the means Whereby this infant sensibility, Great birth-right of our being, was in me Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path More difficult before me, and I fear
4. Like the modern psychologist, Wordsworth rec-ceives what would otherwise be an alien world as ognized the importance of earliest infancy in the a place to which he has a relationship like that of development of the individual mind, although he a son to a mother (lines 239?45). On such grounds had then to invent the terms with which to analyze Wordsworth asserts that the mind partially creates, the process. by altering, the world it seems simply to perceive. 5. The infant, in the sense of security and love 6. I.e., both infant and mother feel the pulse of shed by his mother's presence on outer things, per-the other's heart.
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34 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
275 That, in its broken windings, we shall need The chamois'7 sinews, and the eagle's wing: For now a trouble came into my mind From unknown causes. I was left alone, Seeking the visible world, nor knowing why.
280 The props of my affections were removed,8 And yet the building stood, as if sustained By its own spirit! All that I beheld Was dear, and hence to finer influxes0 influences The mind lay open, to a more exact
285 And close communion. Many are our joys In youth, but Oh! what happiness to live When every hour brings palpable access Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight, And sorrow is not there! The seasons came,
290 And every season, wheresoe'er I moved, Unfolded0 transitory qualities revealed Which, but for this most watchful power of love, Had been neglected, left a register Of permanent relations, else unknown.9
295 Hence life, and change, and beauty; solitude More active even than 'best society,'1 Society made sweet as solitude By inward concords, silent, inobtrusive; And gentle agitations of the mind
300 From manifold distinctions, difference Perceived in things where, to the unwatchful eye, No difference is, and hence, from the same source, Sublimer joy: for I would walk alone Under the quiet stars, and at that time
305 Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound To breathe an elevated mood, by form Or Image unprofaned: and I would stand, If the night blackened with a coming storm, Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are
310 The ghostly0 language of the ancient earth, disembodied Or make their dim abode in distant winds. Thence did I drink the visionary power; And deem not profitless those fleeting moods Of shadowy exultation: not for this, 315 That they are kindred to our purer mind And intellectual life;2 but that the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity, whereto 320 With growing faculties she doth aspire, With faculties still growing, feeling still
7. An agile species of antelope inhabiting moun- relations' now recorded in his memory would have tainous regions of Europe. been unknown. 8. Wordsworth's mother had died the month 1. A partial quotation of a line spoken by Adam to before his eighth birthday. Eve in Paradise Lost 9.249: 'For solitude some9. I.e., had it not been for the watchful power of times is best society.' love (line 292), the 'transitory qualities' (291) 2. I.e., not because they are related to the non- would have been neglected, and the 'permanent sensuous ('intellectual') aspect of our life.
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 345
That, whatsoever point they gain, they yet Have something to pursue. And not alone 'Mid gloom and tumult, but no less 'mid fair
325 And tranquil scenes, that universal power And fitness in the latent qualities And essences of things, by which the mind Is moved with feelings of delight, to me Came strengthened with a superadded soul,
330 A virtue not its own.?My morning walks Were early;?oft before the hours of School I travelled round our little Lake, five miles Of pleasant wandering; happy time! more dear For this, that One was by my side, a Friend3
335 Then passionately loved; with heart how full Would he peruse these lines! for many years Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds Both silent to each other, at this time We live as if those hours had never been.
340 Nor seldom did I lift our Cottage latch Far earlier, and ere one smoke-wreath had risen From human dwelling, or the thrush, high perched, Piped to the woods his shrill reveille,4 sate Alone upon some jutting eminence 345 At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale, Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude. How shall I seek the origin, where find Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt? Oft in those moments such a holy calm 350 Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes5
Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw Appeared like something in myself, a dream, A prospect0 in the mind. scene
'Twere long to tell What spring and autumn, what the winter snows,
355 And what the summer shade, what day and night, Evening and morning, sleep and waking thought, From sources inexhaustible, poured forth To feed the spirit of religious love, In which I walked with Nature- But let this
360 Be not forgotten, that I still retained My first creative sensibility, That by the regular action of the world
My soul was unsubdued. A plastic0 power shaping Abode with me, a forming hand, at times
365 Rebellious, acting in a devious mood, A local Spirit of his own, at war With general tendency, but, for the most, Subservient strictly to external things With which it communed. An auxiliar light
