Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/236

214 Yet rich in beauty, beauty that was felt.

But images of danger and distress,

Man suffering among awful Powers and Forms;

Of this I heard, and saw enough to make

Imagination restless; nor was free

Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales

Wanting,—the tragedies of former times,

Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocks

Immutable and everflowing streams,

Where'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.

Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,

Long springs and tepid winters, on the banks

Of delicate Galesus; and no less

Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores:

Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd

To triumphs and to sacrificial rites

Devoted, on the inviolable stream

Of rich Clitumnus; and the goat-herd lived

As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows

Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard

Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocks

With tutelary music, from all harm

The fold protecting. I myself, mature

In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract