Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/109

BOOK IV.] Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things

About its narrow precincts all beloved,

And many of them seeming yet my own!

Why should I speak of what a thousand hearts

Have felt, and every man alive can guess?

The rooms, the court, the garden were not left

Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat

Round the stone table under the dark pine,

Friendly to studious or to festive hours;

Nor that unruly child of mountain birth,

The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed

Within our garden, found himself at once,

As if by trick insidious and unkind,

Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down

(Without an effort and without a will)

A channel paved by man's officious care.

I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again,

And in the press of twenty thousand thoughts,

"Ha," quoth I, "pretty prisoner, are you there!"

Well might sarcastic Fancy then have whispered,

"An emblem here behold of thy own life;

In its late course of even days with all

Their smooth enthralment;" but the heart was full,

Too full for that reproach. My aged Dame

Walked proudly at my side: she guided me;