Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/125

BOOK IV.] Though weak his step and cautious, he appeared

To travel without pain, and I beheld,

With an astonishment but ill suppressed,

His ghostly figure moving at my side;

Nor could I, while we journeyed thus, forbear

To turn from present hardships to the past,

And speak of war, battle, and pestilence,

Sprinkling this talk with questions, better spared,

On what he might himself have seen or felt.

He all the while was in demeanour calm,

Concise in answer; solemn and sublime

He might have seemed, but that in all he said

There was a strange half-absence, as of one

Knowing too well the importance of his theme,

But feeling it no longer. Our discourse

Soon ended, and together on we passed

In silence through a wood gloomy and still.

Up-turning, then, along an open field,

We reached a cottage. At the door I knocked,

And earnestly to charitable care

Commended him as a poor friendless man,

Belated and by sickness overcome.

Assured that now the traveller would repose

In comfort, I entreated that henceforth

He would not linger in the public ways,