The Prelude

A day

Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,

A visitant that while it fans my cheek

Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings

From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.

Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come

To none more grateful than to me; escaped

From the vast city, where I long had pined

A discontented sojourner: now free,

Free as a bird to settle where I will.

The earth is all before me. With a heart

Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,

I look about; and should the chosen guide

Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,

I cannot miss my way.

Whether we be young or old,

Our destiny, our being's heart and home,

Is with infinitude, and only there;

With hope it is, hope that can never die,

Effort and expectation, and desire,

And something evermore about to be.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.

When from our better selves we have too long

Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,

Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,

How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

Multitudes of hours

Pilfered away, by what the Bard who sang

Of the Enchanter Indolence hath called

"Good-natured lounging," and behold a map

Of my collegiate life.

How oft, amid those overflowing streets,

Have I gone forward with the crowd, and said

Unto myself, "The face of every one

That passes by me is a mystery!"

For I would walk alone,

Under the quiet stars, and at that time

Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound

To breathe an elevated mood, by form

Or image unprofaned; and I would stand,

If the night blackened with a coming storm,

Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are

The ghostly language of the ancient earth,

Or make their dim abode in distant winds.

Thence did I drink the visionary power;

And deem not profitless those fleeting moods

Of shadowy exultation: not for this,

That they are kindred to our purer mind

And intellectual life; but that the soul,

Remembering how she felt, but what she felt

Remembering not, retains an obscure sense

Of possible sublimity, whereto

With growing faculties she doth aspire,

With faculties still growing, feeling still

That whatsoever point they gain, they yet

Have something to pursue.

Mighty is the charm

Of those abstractions to a mind beset

With images, and haunted by herself,

And specially delightful unto me

Was that clear synthesis built up aloft

So gracefully; even then when it appeared

Not more than a mere plaything, or a toy

To sense embodied: not the thing it is

In verity, an independent world,

Created out of pure intelligence.

Where the statue stood

Of Newton with his prism and silent face,

The marble index of a mind forever

Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows

Like harmony in music; there is a dark

Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles

Discordant elements, makes them cling together

In one society.

How men lived

Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still

Strangers, not knowing each the other's name.

Here must thou be, O Man!

Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;

Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:

No other can divide with thee this work:

No secondary hand can intervene

To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,

The prime and vital principle is thine

In the recesses of thy nature, far

From any reach of outward fellowship,

Else is not thine at all.

Oh! give us once again the wishing cap

Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat

Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,

And Sabra in the forest with St. George!

The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap

One precious gain, that he forgets himself.

Many are our joys

In youth, but oh! what happiness to live

When every hour brings palpable access

Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,

And sorrow is not there!

And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,

The self-sufficing power of Solitude.