Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/56

34 When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars

Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went,

Feverish with weary joints and beating minds.

Ah! is there one who ever has been young,

Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride

Of intellect and virtue's self-esteem?

One is there, though the wisest and the best

Of all mankind, who covets not at times

Union that cannot be;—who would not give,

If so he might, to duty and to truth

The eagerness of infantine desire?

A tranquillising spirit presses now

On my corporeal frame, so wide appears

The vacancy between me and those days

Which yet have such self-presence in my mind,

That, musing on them, often do I seem

Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself

And of some other Being. A rude mass

Of native rock, left midway in the square

Of our small market village, was the goal

Or centre of these sports; and when, returned

After long absence, thither I repaired,

Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place

A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground

That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream,