Oft, in the public roads Yet unfrequented, while the morning light Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad 560 With a dear friend, [S] and for the better part Of two delightful hours we strolled along By the still borders of the misty lake, [T] Repeating favourite verses with one voice, Or conning more, as happy as the birds 565 That round us chaunted.

Well might we be glad, Lifted above the ground by airy fancies, More bright than madness or the dreams of wine; And, though full oft the objects of our love Were false, and in their splendour overwrought, [U] 570 Yet was there surely then no vulgar power Working within us,--nothing less, in truth, Than that most noble attribute of man, Though yet untutored and inordinate, That wish for something loftier, more adorned, 575 Than is the common aspect, daily garb, Of human life.

What wonder, then, if sounds Of exultation echoed through the groves! For, images, and sentiments, and words, And everything encountered or pursued 580 In that delicious world of poesy, Kept holiday, a never-ending show, With music, incense, festival, and flowers! Here must we pause: this only let me add, From heart-experience, and in humblest sense 585 Of modesty, that he, who in his youth A daily wanderer among woods and fields With living Nature hath been intimate, Not only in that raw unpractised time Is stirred to extasy, as others are, 590 By glittering verse; but further, doth receive, In measure only dealt out to himself, Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets.

Visionary power 595 Attends the motions of the viewless winds, Embodied in the mystery of words: There, darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes,--there, As in a mansion like their proper home, 600 Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognised, In flashes, and with glory not their own.

605 * * * * * VARIANTS ON THE TEXT [Footnote A: This quotation I am unable to trace .-- Ed.] [Footnote B: Compare Emily Bronte's statement of the same, in the last verse she wrote: 'Though Earth and Man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death, Nor atom that His might could render void; Thou--THOU art Being and Breath, And what THOU art may never be destroyed.' Ed.] [Footnote C: "Because she would then become farther and farther removed from the source of essential life and being, diffused instead of concentrated." (William Davies) .-- Ed.] [Footnote D: Mr.A.J.Duffield, the translator of Don Quixote, wrote me the following letter on Wordsworth and Cervantes, which I transcribe in full.
"So far as I can learn Wordsworth had not read any critical work on Don Quixote before he wrote the fifth book of 'The Prelude', [a] nor for that matter had any criticism of the master-piece of Cervantes then appeared.