Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/292

270 I felt most deeply in what world I was,

What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed.

High was my room and lonely, near the roof

Of a large mansion or hotel, a lodge

That would have pleased me in more quiet times;

Nor was it wholly without pleasure then.

With unextinguished taper I kept watch,

Reading at intervals; the fear gone by

Pressed on me almost like a fear to come.

I thought of those September massacres,

Divided from me by one little month,

Saw them and touched: the rest was conjured up

From tragic fictions or true history,

Remembrances and dim admonishments.

The horse is taught his manage, and no star

Of wildest course but treads back his own steps;

For the spent hurricane the air provides

As fierce a successor; the tide retreats

But to return out of its hiding-place

In the great deep; all things have second birth;

The earthquake is not satisfied at once;

And in this way I wrought upon myself,

Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried,

To the whole city, "Sleep no more." The trance

Fled with the voice to which it had given birth;