Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/181

BOOK VI.] That from the torrent's further brink held forth

Conspicuous invitation to ascend

A lofty mountain. After brief delay

Crossing the unbridged stream, that road we took,

And clomb with eagerness, till anxious fears

Intruded, for we failed to overtake

Our comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,

While every moment added doubt to doubt,

A peasant met us, from whose mouth we learned

That to the spot which had perplexed us first

We must descend, and there should find the road,

Which in the stony channel of the stream

Lay a few steps, and then along its banks;

And, that our future course, all plain to sight,

Was downwards, with the current of that stream.

Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,

For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,

We questioned him again, and yet again;

But every word that from the peasant's lips

Came in reply, translated by our feelings,

Ended in this,—that we had crossed the Alps.

Imagination—here the Power so called

Through sad incompetence of human speech,

That awful Power rose from the mind's abyss