Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/89

BOOK III.] Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington

I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade;

Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales

Of amorous passion. And that gentle Bard,

Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State—

Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven

With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,

I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend!

Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day,

Stood almost single; uttering odious truth—

Darkness before, and danger's voice behind,

Soul awful—if the earth has ever lodged

An awful soul—I seemed to see him here

Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress

Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth—

A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks

Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,

And conscious step of purity and pride.

Among the band of my compeers was one

Whom chance had stationed in the very room

Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard!

Be it confest that, for the first time, seated

Within thy innocent lodge and oratory,

One of a festive circle, I poured out

Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride