Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/166

144 A mansion visited (as fame reports)

By Sidney, where, in sight of our Helvellyn,

Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen

Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love

Inspired;—that river and those mouldering towers

Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb

The darksome windings of a broken stair,

And crept along a ridge of fractured wall,

Not without trembling, we in safety looked

Forth, through some Gothic window's open space,

And gathered with one mind a rich reward

From the far-stretching landscape, by the light

Of morning beautified, or purple eve;

Or, not less pleased, lay on some turret's head,

Catching from tufts of grass and hare-bell flowers

Their faintest whisper to the passing breeze,

Given out while mid-day heat oppressed the plains.

Another maid there was, who also shed

A gladness o'er that season, then to me,

By her exulting outside look of youth

And placid under-countenance, first endeared;

That other spirit, Coleridge! who is now

So near to us, that meek confiding heart,

So reverenced by us both. O'er paths and fields