Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/122

100 How gracious, how benign, is Solitude;

How potent a mere image of her sway;

Most potent when impressed upon the mind

With an appropriate human centre—hermit,

Deep in the bosom of the wilderness;

Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot

Is treading, where no other face is seen)

Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top

Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves;

Or as the soul of that great Power is met

Sometimes embodied on a public road,

When, for the night deserted, it assumes

A character of quiet more profound

Than pathless wastes.

Once, when those summer months

Were flown, and autumn brought its annual show

Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails,

Upon Winander's spacious breast, it chanced

That—after I had left a flower-decked room

(Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived

To a late hour), and spirits overwrought

Were making night do penance for a day

Spent in a round of strenuous idleness—

My homeward course led up a long ascent,

Where the road's watery surface, to the top