Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/344

322 To things above all art; but more,—for this,

Although a strong infection of the age,

Was never much my habit—giving way

To a comparison of scene with scene,

Bent overmuch on superficial things,

Pampering myself with meagre novelties

Of colour and proportion; to the moods

Of time and season, to the moral power,

The affections and the spirit of the place,

Insensible. Nor only did the love

Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt

My deeper feelings, but another cause,

More subtle and less easily explained,

That almost seems inherent in the creature,

A twofold frame of body and of mind.

I speak in recollection of a time

When the bodily eye, in every stage of life

The most despotic of our senses, gained

Such strength in me as often held my mind

In absolute dominion. Gladly here,

Entering upon abstruser argument,

Could I endeavour to unfold the means

Which Nature studiously employs to thwart

This tyranny, summons all the senses each

To counteract the other, and themselves,