Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/92

70 As far as doth concern my single self,

Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere:

For I, bred up 'mid Nature's luxuries,

Was a spoiled child, and rambling like the wind,

As I had done in daily intercourse

With those crystalline rivers, solemn heights,

And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,

I was ill-tutored for captivity;

To quit my pleasure, and, from month to month,

Take up a station calmly on the perch

Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms

Had also left less space within my mind,

Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found

A freshness in those objects of her love,

A winning power, beyond all other power.

Not that I slighted books,—that were to lack

All sense,—but other passions in me ruled,

Passions more fervent, making me less prompt

To in-door study than was wise or well,

Or suited to those years. Yet I, though used

In magisterial liberty to rove,

Culling such flowers of learning as might tempt

A random choice, could shadow forth a place

(If now I yield not to a flattering dream)

Whose studious aspect should have bent me down