Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/177

BOOK VI.] The floors of those dim cloisters, till that hour,

From their foundation, strangers to the presence

Of unrestricted and unthinking man.

Abroad, how cheeringly the sunshine lay

Upon the open lawns! Vallombre's groves

Entering, we fed the soul with darkness; thence

Issued, and with uplifted eyes beheld,

In different quarters of the bending sky,

The cross of Jesus stand erect, as if

Hands of angelic powers had fixed it there,

Memorial reverenced by a thousand storms;

Yet then, from the undiscriminating sweep

And rage of one State-whirlwind, insecure.

'Tis not my present purpose to retrace

That variegated journey step by step.

A march it was of military speed,

And Earth did change her images and forms

Before us, fast as clouds are changed in heaven.

Day after day, up early and down late,

From hill to vale we dropped, from vale to hill

Mounted—from province on to province swept,

Keen hunters in a chase of fourteen weeks,

Eager as birds of prey, or as a ship

Upon the stretch, when winds are blowing fair: