Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/120

98 Doth here rise up against me. 'Mid a throng

Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid,

A medley of all tempers, I had passed

The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth,

With din of instruments and shuffling feet,

And glancing forms, and tapers glittering,

And unaimed prattle flying up and down;

Spirits upon the stretch, and here and there

Slight shocks of young love-liking interspersed,

Whose transient pleasure mounted to the head,

And tingled through the veins. Ere we retired,

The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky

Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse

And open field, through which the pathway wound,

And homeward led my steps. Magnificent

The morning rose, in memorable pomp,

Glorious as e'er I had beheld—in front,

The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,

The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,

Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;

And in the meadows and the lower grounds

Was all the sweetness of a common dawn—

Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,

And labourers going forth to till the fields.

Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim