The Prelude or Growth of a Poet's Mind: By William Wordsworth: Edited from the manuscripts with introduction, textual and critical notes by Ernest de Selincourt |
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 | The Prelude |  |
Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust
Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,
And from the rubbish gather'd up a stone
And pocketed the relick in the guise
Of an enthusiast, yet, in honest truth
Though not without some strong incumbencies;
And glad, (could living man be otherwise)
I look'd for something that I could not find,
Affecting more emotion than I felt,
For 'tis most certain that the utmost force
Of all these various objects which may shew
The temper of my mind as then it was
Seem'd less to recompense the Traveller's pains,
Less mov'd me, gave me less delight than did,
Among other sights, the Magdalene of le Brun,
A Beauty exquisitely wrought, fair face
And rueful, with its ever-flowing tears.
Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,
And from the rubbish gather'd up a stone
And pocketed the relick in the guise
Of an enthusiast, yet, in honest truth
Though not without some strong incumbencies;
And glad, (could living man be otherwise)
I look'd for something that I could not find,
Affecting more emotion than I felt,
For 'tis most certain that the utmost force
Of all these various objects which may shew
The temper of my mind as then it was
Seem'd less to recompense the Traveller's pains,
Less mov'd me, gave me less delight than did,
Among other sights, the Magdalene of le Brun,
A Beauty exquisitely wrought, fair face
And rueful, with its ever-flowing tears.
| The Prelude | |