Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/48

26 Not seldom even in that tempestuous time,

Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense

Which seem, in their simplicity, to own

An intellectual charm; that calm delight

Which, if I err not, surely must belong

To those first-born affinities that fit

Our new existence to existing things,

And, in our dawn of being, constitute

The bond of union between life and joy.

Yes, I remember when the changeful earth,

And twice five summers on my mind had stamped

The faces of the moving year, even then

I held unconscious intercourse with beauty

Old as creation, drinking in a pure

Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths

Of curling mist, or from the level plain

Of waters coloured by impending clouds.

The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays

Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell

How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,

And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills

Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,

How I have stood, to fancies such as these