Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/311

BOOK X.] In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp

Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales

Among whose happy fields I had grown up

From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,

That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed

Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw

Sad opposites out of the inner heart,

As even their pensive influence drew from mine.

How could it otherwise? for not in vain

That very morning had I turned aside

To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves,

An honoured teacher of my youth was laid,

And on the stone were graven by his desire

Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.

This faithful guide, speaking from his death-bed,

Added no farewell to his parting counsel,

But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;"

And when I saw the turf that covered him,

After the lapse of full eight years, those words,

With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,

Came back upon me, so that some few tears

Fell from me in my own despite. But now

I thought, still traversing that widespread plain,

With tender pleasure of the verses graven

Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself: