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She shall be mine, and I will make

A Lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn,
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

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Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

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And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same;
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!

-Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

THE PRELUDE; OR, GROWTH OF A
POET'S MIND

FROM BOOK I. CHILDHOOD

Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird
Had in high places built her lodge; though

mean

Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung 330
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
56 Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry
wind

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Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less
In that beloved Vale1 to which erelong
We were transplanted;-there were we let loose
For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
Ten birth-days, when among the mountain
slopes

Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had
snapped

The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy
With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung 310
To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Along the smooth green turf. Through half the
night,

Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth-and with what motion moved the clouds!

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows 340
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange, that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!
Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to
employ;

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Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light
Opening the peaceful clouds; or she would use
Severer interventions, ministry

More palpable, as best might suit her aim.

359

One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cave, its usual home. Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in That anxious visitation;-moon and stars Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice And seemed to be a trouble to the peace Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befell Leaving behind her still, on either side, In these night wanderings, that a strong desire Small circles glittering idly in the moon, O'rpowered my better reason, and the bird Until they melted all into one track Which was the captive of another's toil 320 Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Became my prey; and when the deed was done Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point

I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps

Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

With an unswerving line, I fixed my view
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

Nor less, when spring had warmed the cul- I dipped my oars into the silent lake,
tured Vale,

1 Esthwaite, Lancashire, where, at the village of Hawkshead, Wordsworth attended school.

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And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
Went heaving through the water like a swan;
When, from behind that craggy steep till then

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and | The village clock tolled six,-I wheeled about, huge, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,

As if with voluntary power instinct,
379
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the covert of the willow tree;
There in her mooring-place I left my bark,-
And through the meadows homeward went, in
grave

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390 Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively

And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain

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410

By day or star-light thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things—
With life and nature-purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valley made
A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods,
At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 420
Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine;
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the summer long.

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Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning
still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me-even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

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Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye, through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470 Impressed, upon all forms, the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth, With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea?

Not uselessly employed, Might I pursue this theme through every change Of exercise and play, to which the year Did summon us in his delightful round.

FROM BOOK V

There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander!2-many a time

2 Winandermere, now Windermere, a lake in Westmoreland.

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Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud,
Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild
Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause
Of silence came and baffled his best skill,
Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

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This Boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs

Upon a slope above the village-school,

And through that churchyard when my way has led

On summer-evenings, I believe that there
A long half hour together I have stood
Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies!

MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.3

THE SOLITARY REAPER

Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

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Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

3 religious regard for nature

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SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT* For oft, when on my couch I lie

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

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Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 20

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

1 wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay:

• Written of Mrs. Wordsworth.

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,

30 And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold

Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed;

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Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,

No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust:
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray;

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But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I

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