Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/117

BOOK IV.] Which I had loved, even as a blessed spirit

Or Angel, if he were to dwell on earth,

Might love in individual happiness.

But now there opened on me other thoughts

Of change, congratulation or regret,

A pensive feeling! It spread far and wide;

The trees, the mountains shared it, and the brooks,

The stars of Heaven, now seen in their old haunts—

White Sirius glittering o'er the southern crags,

Orion with his belt, and those fair Seven,

Acquaintances of every little child,

And Jupiter, my own beloved star!

Whatever shadings of mortality,

Whatever imports from the world of death

Had come among these objects heretofore,

Were, in the main, of mood less tender: strong,

Deep, gloomy were they, and severe; the scatterings

Of awe or tremulous dread, that had given way

In later youth to yearnings of a love

Enthusiastic, to delight and hope.

As one who hangs down-bending from the side

Of a slow-moving boat, upon the breast

Of a still water, solacing himself

With such discoveries as his eye can make