Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/39

13 Or flowing from the universal face

Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power

Of Nature, and already was prepared,

By his intense conceptions, to receive

Deeply the lesson deep of love which he,

Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught

To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

From early childhood, even, as hath been said,

From his sixth year, he had been sent abroad

In summer to tend herds: such was his task

Thenceforward 'till the later day of youth.

O then what soul was his, when, on the tops

Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked—

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,

And in their silent faces did he read

Unutterable love. Sound needed none.

Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank

The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form

All melted into him; they swallowed up