Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.
335 At other moments (for through that wide waste
Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain
Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds,
That yet survive, a work, as some divine,3
Shaped by the Druids, so to represent
340 Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth
The constellations; gently was I charmed
Into a waking dream, a reverie
That with believing eyes, where'er I turned,
Beheld long-bearded Teachers with white wands
345 Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky Alternately, and Plain below, while breath
Of music swayed their motions, and the Waste
Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet Sounds.4
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365 Moreover, each man's mind is to herself
Witness and judge; and I remember well
That in Life's every-day appearances
I seemed about this time' to gain clear sight
Of a new world, a world, too, that was fit
370 To be transmitted and to other eyes Made visible, as ruled by those fixed laws
Whence spiritual dignity originates,
Which do both give it being and maintain
A balance, an ennobling interchange
375 Of action from without, and from within;
The excellence, pure function, and best power
Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.
alithic structure on Salisbury' Plain, had been a wicker structure in the shape of a man, filled it temple of the Celtic priests, the Druids, and that with living humans, and set it afire. the Druids had there performed the rite of human 3. Conjecture (a verb). sacrifice; hence the imaginings and vision that he 4. Many 18th-century antiquarians believed the goes on to relate. Druids to be the forerunners of the bards, the poets
1. High open country. whose songs kept alive the nation's traditions in the 2. The many Bronze Age burial mounds on Salis-era prior to the advent of writing. bury Plain. 'Giant wicker': Aylett Sammes, in Bri-5. 1797, the year of the start of his friendship with tannia Antiqua Illustrata (1676), had described, as Coleridge. a rite of the ancient Britons, that they wove a huge
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 38 5
From Book Fourteenth Conclusion [THE VISION ON MOUNT SNOWDON.] In one of those Excursions (may they ne'er Fade from remembrance!), through the Northern tracts Of Cambria ranging with a youthful Friend, I left Bethgellert's huts at couching-time, 5 And westward took my way, to see the sun Rise from the top of Snowdon.1 To the door Of a rude Cottage at the Mountain's base We came, and rouzed the Shepherd who attends The adventurous Stranger's steps, a trusty Guide; 10 Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. ?It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, Wan, dull, and glaring,2 with a dripping fog Low-hung and thick, that covered all the sky. But, undiscouraged, we began to climb is The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, And, after ordinary Travellers' talk With our Conductor, pensively we sank Each into commerce with his private thoughts: Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself 20 Was nothing either seen or heard that checked Those musings or diverted, save that once The Shepherd's Lurcher,0 who, among the Crags, hunting dog Had to his joy unearthed a Hedgehog, teased His coiled-up Prey with barkings turbulent. 25 This small adventure, for even such it seemed In that wild place, and at the dead of night, Being over and forgotten, on we wound In silence as before. With forehead bent Earthward, as if in opposition set 30 Against an enemy, I panted up With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts. Thus might we wear a midnight hour away, Ascending at loose distance each from each, And I, as chanced, the foremost of the Band: 35 When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten, And with a step or two seemed brighter still; Nor was time given to ask, or learn, the cause; For instantly a light upon the turf Fell like a flash; and lo! as I looked up, 40 The Moon hung naked in a firmament
1. Wordsworth climbed Mount Snowdon?the highest peak in Wales ('Cambria'), and some ten miles from the sea?with Robert Jones, the friend with whom he had also tramped through the Alps (book 6). The climb started from the village of Bethgelert at 'couching-time' (line 4), the time of night when the sheep lie down to sleep. This event had taken place in 1791 (orpossibly 1793);Wordsworth presents it out of its chronological order to introduce at this point a great natural 'type' or 'emblem' (lines 66, 70) for the mind, and especially for the activity of the imagination, whose 'restoration' he has described in the twro preceding books.
2. In north of England dialect, glairie, applied to the weather, means dull, rainy.
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38 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
