Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/185

BOOK VI.] Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,

League after league, and cloistral avenues,

Where silence dwells if music be not there:

While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,

Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove

To chant your praise; nor can approach you now

Ungreeted by a more melodious Song,

Where tones of Nature smoothed by learned Art

May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze

Or sunbeam over your domain I passed

In motion without pause; but ye have left

Your beauty with me, a serene accord

Of forms and colours, passive, yet endowed

In their submissiveness with power as sweet

And gracious, almost might I dare to say,

As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,

Or the remembrance of a generous deed,

Or mildest visitations of pure thought,

When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked

Religiously, in silent blessedness;

Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.

With those delightful pathways we advanced,

For two days' space, in presence of the Lake,

That, stretching far among the Alps, assumed