THE PRELUDE

OR, GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM

THE PRELUDE

OR, GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM

BOOK FIRST

INTRODUCTION-CHILDHOOD AND
SCHOOLTIME

ONE, the fairest of all rivers, loved

To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
O Derwent! winding among grassy holms
Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves.

When he had left the mountains and received On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers That yet survive, a shattered monument

Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed

Along the margin of our terrace walk;
A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved.
Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,
In a small mill-race severed from his stream,
Made one long bathing of a summer's day;
Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again
Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured

The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves
Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,
The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height,
Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone
Beneath the sky, as if I had been born
On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut
Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport,
A naked savage, in the thunder shower.

Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:
Much favoured in my birthplace, and no less
In that beloved vale to which erelong

We were transplanted, there were we let loose
For sports of wider range. Ere I had told
Ten birth-days, when among the mountain-slopes
Frost, and the breath of frosty-wind, had snapped
The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy

With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung
To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Among the smooth green turf. Through half the
night,

Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied

That anxious visitation; moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head. I was alone,
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them.

Sometimes it befell

In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another's toil

Became my prey; and when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds