Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/334

312 A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain

Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,

This sorrowful reverse for all mankind.

I feel for thee, must utter what I feel:

The sympathies erewhile in part discharged,

Gather afresh, and will have vent again:

My own delights do scarcely seem to me

My own delights; the lordly Alps themselves,

Those rosy peaks, from which the Morning looks

Abroad on many nations, are no more

For me that image of pure gladsomeness

Which they were wont to be. Through kindred scenes,

For purpose, at a time, how different!

Thou tak'st thy way, carrying the heart and soul

That Nature gives to Poets, now by thought

Matured, and in the summer of their strength.

Oh! wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,

On Etna's side; and thou, O flowery field

Of Enna! is there not some nook of thine,

From the first play-time of the infant world

Kept sacred to restorative delight,

When from afar invoked by anxious love?

Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,

Ere yet familiar with the classic page,