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 |  |
Thus from a very early age, O Friend!
My thoughts had been attracted more and more
By slow gradations towards human kind
And to the good and ill of human life;
Nature had led me on, and now I seem'd
To travel independent of her help,
As if I had forgotten her; but no,
My Fellow beings still were unto me
Far less than she was, though the scale of love
Were filling fast, 'twas light, as yet, compared
With that in which her mighty objects lay.
My thoughts had been attracted more and more
By slow gradations towards human kind
And to the good and ill of human life;
Nature had led me on, and now I seem'd
To travel independent of her help,
As if I had forgotten her; but no,
My Fellow beings still were unto me
Far less than she was, though the scale of love
Were filling fast, 'twas light, as yet, compared
With that in which her mighty objects lay.
| The Prelude | |