Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/153

BOOK V.] Of exultation echoed through the groves!

For, images, and sentiments, and words,

And everything encountered or pursued

In that delicious world of poesy,

Kept holiday, a never-ending show,

With music, incense, festival, and flowers!

Here must we pause: this only let me add,

From heart-experience, and in humblest sense

Of modesty, that he, who in his youth

A daily wanderer among woods and fields

With living Nature hath been intimate,

Not only in that raw unpractised time

Is stirred to extasy, as others are,

By glittering verse; but further, doth receive,

In measure only dealt out to himself,

Knowledge and increase of enduring joy

From the great Nature that exists in works

Of mighty Poets. Visionary power

Attends the motions of the viewless winds,

Embodied in the mystery of words:

There, darkness makes abode, and all the host

Of shadowy things work endless changes,—there,

As in a mansion like their proper home,

Even forms and substances are circumfused