Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/136

114 Great and benign, indeed, must be the power

Of living nature, which could thus so long

Detain me from the best of other guides

And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised,

Even in the time of lisping infancy;

And later down, in prattling childhood even,

While I was travelling back among those days,

How could I ever play an ingrate's part?

Once more should I have made those bowers resound,

By intermingling strains of thankfulness

With their own thoughtless melodies; at least

It might have well beseemed me to repeat

Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again,

In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale

That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.

O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul,

Think not that I could pass along untouched

By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak?

Why call upon a few weak words to say

What is already written in the hearts

Of all that breathe?—what in the path of all

Drops daily from the tongue of every child,

Wherever man is found? The trickling tear

Upon the cheek of listening Infancy

Proclaims it, and the insuperable look