Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/370

348 A privilege whereby a work of his,

Proceeding from a source of untaught things,

Creative and enduring, may become

A power like one of Nature's. To a hope

Not less ambitious once among the wilds

Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised;

There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs

Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads

Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,

Time with his retinue of ages fled

Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw

Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear;

Saw multitudes of men, and, here and there,

A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,

With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;

The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear

Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength,

Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.

I called on Darkness—but before the word

Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take

All objects from my sight; and lo! again

The Desert visible by dismal flames;

It is the sacrificial altar, fed

With living men—how deep the groans! the voice

Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills