Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/88

66 To gallop through the country in blind zeal

Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast

Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars

Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.

Such was the tenor of the second act

In this new life. Imagination slept,

And yet not utterly. I could not print

Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps

Of generations of illustrious men,

Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass

Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,

Wake where they waked, range that inclosure old,

That garden of great intellects, undisturbed.

Place also by the side of this dark sense

Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men,

Even the great Newton's own ethereal self,

Seemed humbled in these precincts thence to be

The more endeared. Their several memories here

(Even like their persons in their portraits clothed

With the accustomed garb of daily life)

Put on a lowly and a touching grace

Of more distinct humanity, that left

All genuine admiration unimpaired.