Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/43

BOOK I.] It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud

The village clock tolled six,—I wheeled about,

Proud and exulting like an untired horse

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,

We hissed along the polished ice in games

Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn,

The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.

So through the darkness and the cold we flew,

And not a voice was idle; with the din

Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;

The leafless trees and every icy crag

Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills

Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars

Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west

The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired

Into a silent bay, or sportively

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,

To cut across the reflex of a star

That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed

Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,

When we had given our bodies to the wind,

And all the shadowy banks on either side