Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/229

 BOOK EIGHTH.

RETROSPECT.—LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO LOVE OF MAN.

sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard

Up to thy summit, through the depth of air

Ascending, as if distance had the power

To make the sounds more audible? What crowd

Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?

Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,

Though but a little family of men,

Shepherds and tillers of the ground—betimes

Assembled with their children and their wives,

And here and there a stranger interspersed.

They hold a rustic fair—a festival,

Such as, on this side now, and now on that,

Repeated through his tributary vales,

Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,

Sees annually, if clouds towards either ocean