Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/63

BOOK II.] In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess

Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow

For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy.

And, from like feelings, humble though intense,

To patriotic and domestic love

Analogous, the moon to me was dear;

For I could dream away my purposes,

Standing to gaze upon her while she hung

Midway between the hills, as if she knew

No other region, but belonged to thee,

Yea, appertained by a peculiar right

To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale!

Those incidental charms which first attached

My heart to rural objects, day by day

Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell

How Nature, intervenient till this time

And secondary, now at length was sought

For her own sake. But who shall parcel out

His intellect by geometric rules,

Split like a province into round and square?

Who knows the individual hour in which

His habits were first sown, even as a seed?

Who that shall point as with a wand and say

"This portion of the river of my mind