Page:The Recluse, Wordsworth, 1888.djvu/16

4 From open ground to covert, from a bed

Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood;

From high to low, from low to high, yet still

Within the bound of this huge concave; here

Must be his home, this valley be his world.

Since that day forth the Place to him—to me

(For I who live to register the truth

Was that same young and happy Being) became

As beautiful to thought, as it had been

When present, to the bodily sense; a haunt

Of pure affections, shedding upon joy

A brighter joy; and through such damp and gloom

Of the gay mind, as ofttimes splenetic youth

Mistakes for sorrow, darting beams of light

That no self-cherished sadness could withstand;

And now 'tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale,