The Prelude. William Wordsworth

on edge, and did no more.

       Nor wanted we rich pastime of this kind,

       Found everywhere, but chiefly in the ring

       Of the grave Elders, men unscoured, grotesque

       In character, tricked out like aged trees

       ​Which through the lapse of their infirmity

       Give ready place to any random seed

       That chooses to be reared upon their trunks.

      Here on my view, confronting vividly

       Those shepherd swains whom I had lately left,

       Appeared a different aspect of old age;

       How different! yet both distinctly marked,

       Objects embossed to catch the general eye,

       Or portraitures for special use designed,

       As some might seem, so aptly do they serve

       To illustrate Nature's book of rudiments—

       That book upheld as with maternal care

       When she would enter on her tender scheme

       Of teaching comprehension with delight,

       And mingling playful with pathetic thoughts.

      The surfaces of artificial life

       And manners finely wrought, the delicate race

       Of colours, lurking, gleaming up and down

       Through that state arras woven with silk and gold;

       This wily interchange of snaky hues,

       Willingly or unwillingly revealed,

       I neither knew nor cared for; and as such

       Were wanting here, I took what might be found

       ​Of less elaborate fabric. At this day

       I smile, in many a mountain solitude

       Conjuring up scenes as obsolete in freaks

       Of character, in points of wit as broad,

       As aught by wooden images performed

       For entertainment of the gaping crowd

       At wake or fair. And oftentimes do flit

       Remembrances before me of old men—

       Old humourists, who have been long in their graves,

       And having almost in my mind put off

       Their human names, have into phantoms passed

       Of texture midway between life and books.

      I play the loiterer: 'tis enough to note

       That here in dwarf proportions were expressed

       The limbs of the great world; its eager strifes

       Collaterally pourtrayed, as in mock fight,

       A tournament of blows, some hardly dealt

       Though short of mortal combat; and whate'er

       Might in this pageant be supposed to hit

       An artless rustic's notice, this way less,

       More that way, was not wasted upon me—

       And yet the spectacle may well demand

       A more substantial name, no mimic show,

       Itself a living part of a live whole,

       ​A creek in the vast sea; for, all degrees

       And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise

       Here sate in state, and fed with daily alms

       Retainers won away from solid good;

       And here was Labour, his own bond-slave; Hope,

       That never set the pains against the prize;

       Idleness halting with his weary clog,

       And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,

       And simple Pleasure foraging for Death;

       Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray;

       Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile

       Murmuring submission, and bald government,

       (The idol weak as the idolator,)

       And Decency and Custom starving Truth,

       And blind Authority beating with his staff

       The child that might have led him; Emptiness

       Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth

       Left to herself unheard of and unknown.

      Of these and other kindred notices

       I cannot say what portion is in truth

       The naked recollection of that time,

       And what may rather have been called to life

       By after-meditation. But delight

       That, in an easy temper lulled asleep,

       ​Is still with Innocence its own reward,

       This was not wanting. Carelessly I roamed

       As through a wide museum from whose stores

       A casual rarity is singled out

       And has its brief perusal, then gives way

       To others, all supplanted in their turn;

       Till 'mid this crowded neighbourhood of things

       That are by nature most unneighbourly,

       The head turns round and cannot right itself;

       And though an aching and a barren sense

       Of gay confusion still be uppermost,

       With few wise longings and but little love,

       Yet to the memory something cleaves at last,

       Whence profit may be drawn in times to come.

      Thus in submissive idleness, my Friend!

       The labouring time of autumn, winter, spring,

       Eight months! rolled pleasingly away; the ninth

       Came and returned me to my native hills.

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