Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/133

BOOK V. In colour so resplendent, with command

That I should hold it to my ear. I did so,

And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,

Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,

A loud prophetic blast of harmony;

An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold

Destruction to the children of the earth

By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased

The song, than the Arab with calm look declared

That all would come to pass of which the voice

Had given forewarning, and that he himself

Was going then to bury those two books:

The one that held acquaintance with the stars,

And wedded soul to soul in purest bond

Of reason, undisturbed by space or time;

The other that was a god, yea many gods,

Had voices more than all the winds, with power

To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe,

Through every clime, the heart of human kind.

While this was uttering, strange as it may seem,

I wondered not, although I plainly saw

The one to be a stone, the other a shell;

Nor doubted once but that they both were books,

Having a perfect faith in all that passed.

Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt