The Prelude - Book Second Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU VWXYZA2B2C2D2E2VF2G2 H2I2J2K2CL2VM2ON2NO2 C2 L2P2A2Q2R2S2T2AN2D2A 2U2V2W2X2Y2IZ2A3CB3O C3D3HE3F3G3D2OBA A2H3D3AIA2I3J2J3N2UL 2UK3B3L3M3C2N3O3P3L3 L2A2Q3R3S3T3U3V3W3X3 Y3Z3C3BA4 B3B4S2H3C4Y3D4CQ3HE4 F4A2B4F4G4H4A2I4J4H3 OK4 A2L4M4N4FO4Z2S3O4P4F 4Q4Y3R4S2K4A2L4S4T4U 3U4VF4KOGA2V4B3A2W4X 4E2Y4Z4VA4B3S2L4Z3M2 L3EA2TB4OS2R3 R2L4M3A2O3L4E2B3ON4C 4A2H3F4Y2U3P4D2V4E2F 4CMI2Y4WWWWWEA4O2R3A 2WWC2L4D2BWWWA2WWX2Y 4WWWWWN2WEA2X2WWWWY4 X2WWA2A2WI2WWA2HWX2A 2A2WWI2I3A2WO4B3R3WW WX4VWM3WWEWWWA2WA2WW B3WY4WWWVA2WB2WWZWI2 H3WHWY4WF2WWB3WEA2S4 W WGU2WWWWA2U2WU2B2EWU 2WWWWL3U2WWWWWU2WWU2 A2U2M3WU2EW

SCHOOL TIME continued	A
	-
Thus far O Friend have we though leaving much	B
Unvisited endeavoured to retrace	C
The simple ways in which my childhood walked	D
Those chiefly that first led me to the love	E
Of rivers woods and fields The passion yet	F
Was in its birth sustained as might befall	G
By nourishment that came unsought for still	H
From week to week from month to month we lived	I
A round of tumult Duly were our games	J
Prolonged in summer till the daylight failed	K
No chair remained before the doors the bench	L
And threshold steps were empty fast asleep	M
The labourer and the old man who had sate	N
A later lingerer yet the revelry	O
Continued and the loud uproar at last	P
When all the ground was dark and twinkling stars	Q
Edged the black clouds home and to bed we went	R
Feverish with weary joints and beating minds	S
Ah is there one who ever has been young	T
Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride	U
Of intellect and virtue's self esteem	V
One is there though the wisest and the best	W
Of all mankind who covets not at times	X
Union that cannot be who would not give	Y
If so he might to duty and to truth	Z
The eagerness of infantine desire	A2
A tranquillising spirit presses now	B2
On my corporeal frame so wide appears	C2
The vacancy between me and those days	D2
Which yet have such self presence in my mind	E2
That musing on them often do I seem	V
Two consciousnesses conscious of myself	F2
And of some other Being A rude mass	G2
Of native rock left midway in the square	H2
Of our small market village was the goal	I2
Or centre of these sports and when returned	J2
After long absence thither I repaired	K2
Gone was the old grey stone and in its place	C
A smart Assembly room usurped the ground	L2
That had been ours There let the fiddle scream	V
And be ye happy Yet my Friends I know	M2
That more than one of you will think with me	O
Of those soft starry nights and that old Dame	N2
From whom the stone was named who there had sate	N
And watched her table with its huckster's wares	O2
Assiduous through the length of sixty years	C2
	-
We ran a boisterous course the year span round	L2
With giddy motion But the time approached	P2
That brought with it a regular desire	A2
For calmer pleasures when the winning forms	Q2
Of Nature were collaterally attached	R2
To every scheme of holiday delight	S2
And every boyish sport less grateful else	T2
And languidly pursued	A
When summer came	N2
Our pastime was on bright half holidays	D2
To sweep along the plain of Windermere	A2
With rival oars and the selected bourne	U2
Was now an Island musical with birds	V2
That sang and ceased not now a Sister Isle	W2
Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert sown	X2
With lilies of the valley like a field	Y2
And now a third small Island where survived	I
In solitude the ruins of a shrine	Z2
Once to Our Lady dedicate and served	A3
Daily with chaunted rites In such a race	C
So ended disappointment could be none	B3
Uneasiness or pain or jealousy	O
We rested in the shade all pleased alike	C3
Conquered and conqueror Thus the pride of strength	D3
And the vain glory of superior skill	H
Were tempered thus was gradually produced	E3
A quiet independence of the heart	F3
And to my Friend who knows me I may add	G3
Fearless of blame that hence for future days	D2
Ensued a diffidence and modesty	O
And I was taught to feel perhaps too much	B
The self sufficing power of Solitude	A
	-
Our daily meals were frugal Sabine fare	A2
More than we wished we knew the blessing then	H3
Of vigorous hunger hence corporeal strength	D3
Unsapped by delicate viands for exclude	A
A little weekly stipend and we lived	I
Through three divisions of the quartered year	A2
In penniless poverty But now to school	I3
From the half yearly holidays returned	J2
We came with weightier purses that sufficed	J3
To furnish treats more costly than the Dame	N2
Of the old grey stone from her scant board supplied	U
Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground	L2
Or in the woods or by a river side	U
Or shady fountains while among the leaves	K3
Soft airs were stirring and the mid day sun	B3
Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy	L3
Nor is my aim neglected if I tell	M3
How sometimes in the length of those half years	C2
We from our funds drew largely proud to curb	N3
And eager to spur on the galloping steed	O3
And with the courteous inn keeper whose stud	P3
Supplied our want we haply might employ	L3
Sly subterfuge if the adventure's bound	L2
Were distant some famed temple where of yore	A2
The Druids worshipped or the antique walls	Q3
Of that large abbey where within the Vale	R3
Of Nightshade to St Mary's honour built	S3
Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch	T3
Belfry and images and living trees	U3
A holy scene Along the smooth green turf	V3
Our horses grazed To more than inland peace	W3
Left by the west wind sweeping overhead	X3
From a tumultuous ocean trees and towers	Y3
In that sequestered valley may be seen	Z3
Both silent and both motionless alike	C3
Such the deep shelter that is there and such	B
The safeguard for repose and quietness	A4
	-
Our steeds remounted and the summons given	B3
With whip and spur we through the chauntry flew	B4
In uncouth race and left the cross legged knight	S2
And the stone abbot and that single wren	H3
Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave	C4
Of the old church that though from recent showers	Y3
The earth was comfortless and touched by faint	D4
Internal breezes sobbings of the place	C
And respirations from the roofless walls	Q3
The shuddering ivy dripped large drops yet still	H
So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird	E4
Sang to herself that there I could have made	F4
My dwelling place and lived for ever there	A2
To hear such music Through the walls we flew	B4
And down the valley and a circuit made	F4
In wantonness of heart through rough and smooth	G4
We scampered homewards Oh ye rocks and streams	H4
And that still spirit shed from evening air	A2
Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt	I4
Your presence when with slackened step we breathed	J4
Along the sides of the steep hills or when	H3
Lighted by gleams of moonlight from the sea	O
We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand	K4
	-
Midway on long Winander's eastern shore	A2
Within the crescent of pleasant bay	L4
A tavern stood no homely featured house	M4
Primeval like its neighbouring cottages	N4
But 'twas a splendid place the door beset	F
With chaises grooms and liveries and within	O4
Decanters glasses and the blood red wine	Z2
In ancient times and ere the Hall was built	S3
On the large island had this dwelling been	O4
More worthy of a poet's love a hut	P4
Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade	F4
But though the rhymes were gone that once inscribed	Q4
The threshold and large golden characters	Y3
Spread o'er the spangled sign board had dislodged	R4
The old Lion and usurped his place in slight	S2
And mockery of the rustic painter's hand	K4
Yet to this hour the spot to me is dear	A2
With all its foolish pomp The garden lay	L4
Upon a slope surmounted by a plain	S4
Of a small bowling green beneath us stood	T4
A grove with gleams of water through the trees	U3
And over the tree tops nor did we want	U4
Refreshment strawberries and mellow cream	V
There while through half an afternoon we played	F4
On the smooth platform whether skill prevailed	K
Or happy blunder triumphed bursts of glee	O
Made all the mountains ring But ere night fall	G
When in our pinnace we returned at leisure	A2
Over the shadowy lake and to the beach	V4
Of some small island steered our course with one	B3
The Minstrel of the Troop and left him there	A2
And rowed off gently while he blew his flute	W4
Alone upon the rock oh then the calm	X4
And dead still water lay upon my mind	E2
Even with a weight of pleasure and the sky	Y4
Never before so beautiful sank down	Z4
Into my heart and held me like a dream	V
Thus were my sympathies enlarged and thus	A4
Daily the common range of visible things
Grew dear to me already I began
To love the sun a boy I loved the sun	B3
Not as I since have loved him as a pledge
And surety of our earthly life a light	S2
Which we behold and feel we are alive
Nor for his bounty to so many worlds
But for this cause that I had seen him lay	L4
His beauty on the morning hills had seen	Z3
The western mountain touch his setting orb
In many a thoughtless hour when from excess
Of happiness my blood appeared to flow	M2
For its own pleasure and I breathed with joy	L3
And from like feelings humble though intense
To patriotic and domestic love	E
Analogous the moon to me was dear	A2
For I could dream away my purposes
Standing to gaze upon her while she hung	T
Midway between the hills as if she knew	B4
No other region but belonged to thee	O
Yea appertained by a peculiar right	S2
To thee and thy grey huts thou one dear Vale	R3
	-
Those incidental charms which first attached	R2
My heart to rural objects day by day	L4
Grew weaker and I hasten on to tell	M3
How Nature intervenient till this time
And secondary now at length was sought
For her own sake But who shall parcel out
His intellect by geometric rules
Split like a province into round and square	A2
Who knows the individual hour in which
His habits were first sown even as a seed	O3
Who that shall point as with a wand and say	L4
This portion of the river of my mind	E2
Came from yon fountain Thou my Friend art one	B3
More deeply read in thy own thoughts to thee	O
Science appears but what in truth she is	N4
Not as our glory and our absolute boast
But as a succedaneum and a prop
To our infirmity No officious slave	C4
Art thou of that false secondary power	A2
By which we multiply distinctions then	H3
Deem that our puny boundaries are things
That we perceive and not that we have made	F4
To thee unblinded by these formal arts
The unity of all hath been revealed	Y2
And thou wilt doubt with me less aptly skilled
Than many are to range the faculties	U3
In scale and order class the cabinet	P4
Of their sensations and in voluble phrase	D2
Run through the history and birth of each	V4
As of a single independent thing
Hard task vain hope to analyse the mind	E2
If each most obvious and particular thought
Not in a mystical and idle sense
But in the words of Reason deeply weighed	F4
Hath no beginning
Blest the infant Babe
For with my best conjecture I would trace	C
Our Being's earthly progress blest the Babe
Nursed in his Mother's arms who sinks to sleep	M
Rocked on his Mother's breast who with his soul	I2
Drinks in the feelings of his Mother's eye	Y4
For him in one dear Presence there exists
A virtue which irradiates and exalts
Objects through widest intercourse of sense
No outcast he bewildered and depressed	W
Along his infant veins are interfused	W
The gravitation and the filial bond	W
Of nature that connect him with the world	W
Is there a flower to which he points with hand	W
Too weak to gather it already love	E
Drawn from love's purest earthly fount for him
Hath beautified that flower already shades
Of pity cast from inward tenderness	A4
Do fall around him upon aught that bears	O2
Unsightly marks of violence or harm
Emphatically such a Being lives
Frail creature as he is helpless as frail	R3
An inmate of this active universe
For feeling has to him imparted power	A2
That through the growing faculties of sense
Doth like an agent of the one great Mind	W
Create creator and receiver both
Working but in alliance with the works
Which it beholds Such verily is the first	W
Poetic spirit of our human life
By uniform control of after years	C2
In most abated or suppressed in some
Through every change of growth and of decay	L4
Pre eminent till death
From early days	D2
Beginning not long after that first time
In which a Babe by intercourse of touch	B
I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart	W
I have endeavoured to display the means
Whereby this infant sensibility	W
Great birthright of our being was in me	W
Augmented and sustained Yet is a path
More difficult before me and I fear	A2
That in its broken windings we shall need	W
The chamois' sinews and the eagle's wing
For now a trouble came into my mind	W
From unknown causes I was left alone	X2
Seeking the visible world nor knowing why	Y4
The props of my affections were removed	W
And yet the building stood as if sustained	W
By its own spirit All that I beheld	W
Was dear and hence to finer influxes
The mind lay open to a more exact	W
And close communion 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	W
And sorrow is not there The seasons came	N2
And every season wheresoe'er I moved	W
Unfolded transitory qualities
Which but for this most watchful power of love	E
Had been neglected left a register	A2
Of permanent relations else unknown	X2
Hence life and change and beauty solitude	W
More active ever than best society	W
Society made sweet as solitude	W
By silent inobtrusive sympathies
And gentle agitations of the mind	W
From manifold distinctions difference
Perceived in things where to the unwatchful eye	Y4
No difference is and hence from the same source
Sublimer joy for I would walk alone	X2
Under the quiet stars and at that time
Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound	W
To breathe an elevated mood by form
Or image unprofaned and I would stand	W
If the night blackened with a coming storm
Beneath some rock listening to notes that are	A2
The ghostly language of the ancient earth
Or make their dim abode in distant winds
Thence did I drink the visionary power	A2
And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
Of shadowy exultation not for this
That they are kindred to our purer mind	W
And intellectual life but that the soul	I2
Remembering how she felt but what she felt	W
Remembering not retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity whereto	W
With growing faculties she doth aspire	A2
With faculties still growing feeling still	H
That whatsoever point they gain they yet	W
Have something to pursue
And not alone	X2
'Mid gloom and tumult but no less 'mid fair	A2
And tranquil scenes that universal power	A2
And fitness in the latent qualities
And essences of things by which the mind	W
Is moved with feelings of delight to me	W
Came strengthened with a superadded soul	I2
A virtue not its own My morning walks
Were early oft before the hours of school	I3
I travelled round our little lake five miles
Of pleasant wandering Happy time more dear	A2
For this that one was by my side a Friend	W
Then passionately loved with heart how full
Would he peruse these lines For many years
Have since flowed in between us and our minds
Both silent to each other at this time
We live as if those hours had never been	O4
Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch
Far earlier ere one smoke wreath had risen	B3
From human dwelling or the vernal thrush
Was audible and sate among the woods
Alone upon some jutting eminence
At the first gleam of dawn light when the Vale	R3
Yet slumbering lay in utter solitude	W
How shall I seek the origin where find	W
Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt	W
Oft in these moments such a holy calm	X4
Would overspread my soul that bodily eyes
Were utterly forgotten and what I saw
Appeared like something in myself a dream	V
A prospect in the mind	W
'Twere long to tell	M3
What spring and autumn what the winter snows
And what the summer shade what day and night	W
Evening and morning sleep and waking thought	W
From sources inexhaustible poured forth
To feed the spirit of religious love	E
In which I walked with Nature But let this
Be not forgotten that I still retained	W
My first creative sensibility	W
That by the regular action of the world	W
My soul was unsubdued A plastic power	A2
Abode with me a forming hand at times
Rebellious acting in a devious mood	W
A local spirit of his own at war	A2
With general tendency but for the most	W
Subservient strictly to external things
With which it communed An auxiliar light	W
Came from my mind which on the setting sun	B3
Bestowed new splendour the melodious birds
The fluttering breezes fountains that run on
Murmuring so sweetly in themselves obeyed	W
A like dominion and the midnight storm
Grew darker in the presence of my eye	Y4
Hence my obeisance my devotion hence
And hence my transport	W
Nor should this perchance
Pass unrecorded that I still had loved	W
The exercise and produce of a toil
Than analytic industry to me	W
More pleasing and whose character I deem	V
Is more poetic as resembling more	A2
Creative agency The song would speak
Of that interminable building reared	W
By observation of affinities
In objects where no brotherhood exists
To passive minds My seventeenth year was come
And whether from this habit rooted now	B2
So deeply in my mind or from excess
In the great social principle of life
Coercing all things into sympathy	W
To unorganic natures were transferred	W
My own enjoyments or the power of truth	Z
Coming in revelation did converse
With things that really are I at this time
Saw blessings spread around me like a sea	W
Thus while the days flew by and years passed on
From Nature and her overflowing soul	I2
I had received so much that all my thoughts
Were steeped in feeling I was only then	H3
Contented when with bliss ineffable
I felt the sentiment of Being spread	W
O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still	H
O'er all that lost beyond the reach of thought	W
And human knowledge to the human eye	Y4
Invisible yet liveth to the heart	W
O'er all that leaps and runs and shouts and sings
Or beats the gladsome air o'er all that glides
Beneath the wave yea in the wave itself	F2
And mighty depth of waters Wonder not	W
If high the transport great the joy I felt	W
Communing in this sort through earth and heaven	B3
With every form of creature as it looked	W
Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
Of adoration with an eye of love	E
One song they sang and it was audible
Most audible then when the fleshly ear	A2
O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain	S4
Forgot her functions and slept undisturbed	W
	-
If this be error and another faith
Find easier access to the pious mind	W
Yet were I grossly destitute of all	G
Those human sentiments that make this earth
So dear if I should fail with grateful voice
To speak of you ye mountains and ye lakes
And sounding cataracts ye mists and winds
That dwell among the hills where I was born	U2
If in my youth I have been pure in heart	W
If mingling with the world I am content	W
With my own modest pleasures and have lived	W
With God and Nature communing removed	W
From little enmities and low desires
The gift is yours if in these times of fear	A2
This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown	U2
If 'mid indifference and apathy	W
And wicked exultation when good men	U2
On every side fall off we know not how	B2
To selfishness disguised in gentle names
Of peace and quiet and domestic love	E
Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers
On visionary minds if in this time
Of dereliction and dismay I yet	W
Despair not of our nature but retain	U2
A more than Roman confidence a faith
That fails not in all sorrow my support	W
The blessing of my life the gift is yours
Ye winds and sounding cataracts 'tis yours
Ye mountains thine O Nature Thou hast fed	W
My lofty speculations and in thee	W
For this uneasy heart of ours I find	W
A never failing principle of joy	L3
And purest passion	U2
Thou my Friend wert reared	W
In the great city 'mid far other scenes
But we by different roads at length have gained	W
The selfsame bourne And for this cause to thee	W
I speak unapprehensive of contempt	W
The insinuated scoff of coward tongues
And all that silent language which so oft	W
In conversation between man and man	U2
Blots from the human countenance all trace
Of beauty and of love For thou hast sought	W
The truth in solitude and since the days
That gave thee liberty full long desired	W
To serve in Nature's temple thou hast been	U2
The most assiduous of her ministers
In many things my brother chiefly here	A2
In this our deep devotion	U2
Fare thee well	M3
Health and the quiet of a healthful mind	W
Attend thee seeking oft the haunts of men	U2
And yet more often living with thyself	E
And for thyself so haply shall thy days
Be many and a blessing to mankind	W

William Wordsworth

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