Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/208

200 It is in truth an utter solitude,

Nor should I have made mention of this Dell

But for one object which you might pass by,

Might see and notice not. Beside the brook

There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!

And to that place a story appertains,

Which, though it be ungarnish'd with events,

Is not unfit, I deem, for the fire-side,

Or for the summer shade. It was the first,

The earliest of those tales that spake to me

Of Shepherds, dwellers in the vallies, men

Whom I already lov'd, not verily

For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills

Where was their occupation and abode.

And hence this Tale, while I was yet a boy

Careless of books, yet having felt the power

Of Nature, by the gentle agency

Of natural objects led me on to feel

For passions that were not my own, and think