Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/83

BOOK III.] Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all

That I beheld respired with inward meaning.

Add that whatever of Terror or of Love

Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on

From transitory passion, unto this

I was as sensitive as waters are

To the sky's influence in a kindred mood

Of passion; was obedient as a lute

That waits upon the touches of the wind.

Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich—

I had a world about me—'twas my own;

I made it, for it only lived to me,

And to the God who sees into the heart.

Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed

By outward gestures and by visible looks:

Some called it madness—so indeed it was,

If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy,

If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured

To inspiration, sort with such a name;

If prophecy be madness; if things viewed

By poets in old time, and higher up

By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,

May in these tutored days no more be seen

With undisordered sight. But leaving this,

It was no madness, for the bodily eye