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 |  |
Here on my view, confronting as it were
Those Shepherd Swains whom I had lately left,
Did flash a different image of old age;
How different! yet both withal alike,
A Book of rudiments for the unpractis'd sight,
Objects emboss'd! and which with sedulous care
Nature holds up before the eye of Youth
In her great School; with further view, perhaps,
To enter early on her tender scheme
Of teaching comprehension with delight,
And mingling playful with pathetic thoughts.
Those Shepherd Swains whom I had lately left,
Did flash a different image of old age;
How different! yet both withal alike,
A Book of rudiments for the unpractis'd sight,
Objects emboss'd! and which with sedulous care
Nature holds up before the eye of Youth
In her great School; with further view, perhaps,
To enter early on her tender scheme
Of teaching comprehension with delight,
And mingling playful with pathetic thoughts.
| The Prelude | |