Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/137

BOOK V.] That drinks as if it never could be full.

That portion of my story I shall leave

There registered: whatever else of power

Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be

Peculiar to myself, let that remain

Where still it works, though hidden from all search

Among the depths of time. Yet is it just

That here, in memory of all books which lay

Their sure foundations in the heart of man,

Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,

That in the name of all inspirèd souls,

From Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice

That roars along the bed of Jewish song,

And that more varied and elaborate,

Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake

Our shores in England,—from those loftiest notes

Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made

For cottagers and spinners at the wheel,

And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs,

Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes,

Food for the hungry ears of little ones,

And of old men who have survived their joys:

'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works,

And of the men that framed them, whether known,