Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/135

BOOK V. Full often, taking from the world of sleep

This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld,

This semi-Quixote, I to him have given

A substance, fancied him a living man,

A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed

By love and feeling, and internal thought

Protracted among endless solitudes;

Have shaped him wandering upon this quest!

Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt

Reverence was due to a being thus employed;

And thought that, in the blind and awful lair

Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.

Enow there are on earth to take in charge

Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,

Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear;

Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say,

Contemplating in soberness the approach

Of an event so dire, by signs in earth

Or heaven made manifest, that I could share

That maniac's fond anxiety, and go

Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least

Me hath such strong entrancement overcome,

When I have held a volume in my hand,

Poor earthly casket of immortal verse,

Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine!