Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/101

BOOK III.] 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,