Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/372

350 Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone,

An image, and a character, by books

Not hitherto reflected. Call we this

A partial judgment—and yet why? for then

We were as strangers; and I may not speak

Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude,

Which on thy young imagination, trained

In the great City, broke like light from far.

Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself

Witness and judge; and I remember well

That in life's every-day appearances

I seemed about this time to gain clear sight

Of a new world—a world, too, that was fit

To be transmitted, and to other eyes

Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws

Whence spiritual dignity originates,

Which do both give it being and maintain

A balance, an ennobling interchange

Of action from without and from within;

The excellence, pure function, and best power

Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.