Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/255

BOOK VIII.] Had never much delighted me. And less

Than other intellects had mine been used

To lean upon extrinsic circumstance

Of record or tradition; but a sense

Of what in the Great City had been done

And suffered, and was doing, suffering, still,

Weighed with me, could support the test of thought;

And, in despite of all that had gone by,

Or was departing never to return,

There I conversed with majesty and power

Like independent natures. Hence the place

Was thronged with impregnations like the Wilds

In which my early feelings had been nursed—

Bare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks,

And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,

Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags

That into music touch the passing wind.

Here then my young imagination found

No uncongenial element; could here

Among new objects serve or give command,

Even as the heart's occasions might require,

To forward reason's else too scrupulous march.

The effect was, still more elevated views

Of human nature. Neither vice nor guilt,

Debasement undergone by body or mind,