3. Identifiedas John Fleming in a note to the 1850 4. The signal given to awaken soldiers, edition. 5. As opposed to the mind's eye, inner vision.
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34 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
370 Came from my mind which on the setting sun Bestowed new splendor; the melodious birds, The fluttering breezes, fountains that ran on Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed A like dominion; and the midnight storm
375 Grew darker in the presence of my eye; Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, And hence my transport.0 exaltation
Nor should this, perchance, Pass unrecorded, that I still0 had loved always The exercise and produce of a toil
380 Than analytic industry to me More pleasing, and whose character I deem Is more poetic, as resembling more Creative agency. The Song would speak Of that interminable building reared
385 By observation of affinities In objects where no brotherhood exists To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come; And, whether from this habit rooted now So deeply in my mind, or from excess
390 Of the great social principle of life Coercing all things into sympathy, To unorganic Natures were transferred My own enjoyments; or the Power of truth, Coming in revelation, did converse
395 With things that really are;6 I, at this time, Saw blessings spread around me like a sea. Thus while the days flew by and years passed on, From Nature overflowing on my soul I had received so much, that every thought
400 Was steeped in feeling; I was only then Contented when with bliss ineffable I felt the sentiment of Being spread O'er all that moves, and all that seemeth still; O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
405 And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart; O'er all that leaps, and runs, and shouts, and sings, Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,
410 And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not If high the transport, great the joy I felt, Communing in this sort through earth and Heaven With every form of Creature, as it looked
Towards the Uncreated0 with a countenance God 415 Of adoration, with an eye of love.7 One song they sang, and it was audible,
6. Wordsworth is careful to indicate that there are alternative explanations for his sense that life pervades the inorganic as well as the organic world: it may be the result either of a way of perceiving that has been habitual since infancy or of a projection of his own inner life, or else it may be the perception of an objective truth.
7. Wordsworth did not add lines 412?14, which frame his experience of the 'one life' in Christian terms, until the last revision of The Prelude, in 1839.
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 347
Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear, O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain, Forgot her functions and slept undisturbed.
420 If this be error, and another faith Find easier access to the pious mind,8 Yet were I grossly destitute of all Those human sentiments that make this earth So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice
425 To speak of you, Ye Mountains, and Ye Lakes, And sounding Cataracts, Ye Mists and Winds That dwell among the Hills where I was born. If in my Youth I have been pure in heart, If, mingling with the world, I am content
430 With my own modest pleasures, and have lived, With God and Nature communing, removed From little enmities and low desires, The gift is yours: if in these times of fear,
This melancholy waste' of hopes o'erthrown, wasteland
435 If, 'mid indifference and apathy And wicked exultation, when good men, On every side, fall off, we know not how, To selfishness, disguised in gentle names Of peace and quiet and domestic love,
440 Yet mingled, not unwillingly, with sneers On visionary minds; if, in this time Of dereliction and dismay,9 I yet Despair not of our Nature, but retain A more than Roman confidence, a faith
445 That fails not, in all sorrow my support, The blessing of my life, the gift is yours, Ye Winds and sounding Cataracts, 'tis yours, Ye Mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed My lofty speculations; and in thee,
450 For this uneasy heart of ours, I find A never-failing principle of joy And purest passion.
Thou, my Friend! wert reared In the great City, 'mid far other scenes;1 But we, by different roads, at length have gained
455 The self-same bourne.0 And for this cause to Thee destination I speak, unapprehensive of contempt, The insinuated scoff of coward tongues, And all that silent language which so oft, In conversation between Man and Man,
460 Blots from the human countenance all trace Of beauty and of love. For Thou hast sought The truth in solitude, and, since the days That gave thee liberty, full long desired,
8. Compare 'Tintern Abbey' lines 43?50, ending clamping down on all forms of political expression with 'If this / Be but a vain belief. ..' (p. 259). that resembled, even faintly, French ideas. 9. The era, some ten years after the start of the 1. A reminiscence of Coleridge's 'Frost at Mid- French Revolution, was one of violent reaction. night,' lines 51?52: 'For I was reared / In the great Many earlier sympathizers were abandoning their city, pent 'mid cloisters dim.' radical beliefs, and the British government was
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