The Prelude - Book Twelfth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNCOPQRST UVWXYHGZA2B2PC2A2D2E 2F2G2H2I2J2K2TL2 M2D2N2O2P2Q2R2S2T2U2 VK2D2V2V2D2VF2W2X2Y2 Z2U2A3V2B3HHXD2D2 VD2V2C3ZD3E3F3J2G3FH 3I2 I3J3K3D2C3 L3D2M3YN3O3P3ZQ3R3J2 S3T3U3G2R2V3L3W3X3Y3 Z3A4N2B4C4K2MD2D4E4F 4K2R2G4D2F4R2H4I4J4K 4L4M4J2N4K2O4J2P4Q4R 4TS4T4D2O2U4FV4ZK3B4 I3W4VD2X4D2J2X3TY4Y4 Y4N3Y4D2O4EY4 UN3Y4Y4Y4Y4G4Y4Y4G2N 2Y4Y4D2Z4Y4Y4Y4VVJ2Y 4Y4S2H3J4D2VD2Y4J2 G4Y4Y4Y4Y4Y4Y4Y4F2D2 P3U4Y4J2Y4N3Y4VVD3D2 Y4Y4VY4VJ2Y4Y4VY4Z3Y 4HY4J2Y4Y4A4J2G4VY4D 3J2D2VD2D2Y4VG4UY4Y4 Y4Z3J2T4Y4Y4Y4Y4Y4Y4 Y4Y4J2J2Y4Z3Y4Y4J2IMAGINATION AND TASTE HOW IMPAIRED AND RESTORED | A |
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Long time have human ignorance and guilt | B |
Detained us on what spectacles of woe | C |
Compelled to look and inwardly oppressed | D |
With sorrow disappointment vexing thoughts | E |
Confusion of the judgment zeal decayed | F |
And lastly utter loss of hope itself | G |
And things to hope for Not with these began | H |
Our song and not with these our song must end | I |
Ye motions of delight that haunt the sides | J |
Of the green hills ye breezes and soft airs | K |
Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers | L |
Feelingly watched might teach Man's haughty race | M |
How without Injury to take to give | N |
Without offence ye who as if to show | C |
The wondrous influence of power gently used | O |
Bend the complying heads of lordly pines | P |
And with a touch shift the stupendous clouds | Q |
Through the whole compass of the sky ye brooks | R |
Muttering along the stones a busy noise | S |
By day a quiet sound in silent night | T |
Ye waves that out of the great deep steal forth | U |
In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore | V |
Not mute and then retire fearing no storm | W |
And you ye groves whose ministry it is | X |
To interpose the covert of your shades | Y |
Even as a sleep between the heart of man | H |
And outward troubles between man himself | G |
Not seldom and his own uneasy heart | Z |
Oh that I had a music and a voice | A2 |
Harmonious as your own that I might tell | B2 |
What ye have done for me The morning shines | P |
Nor heedeth Man's perverseness Spring returns | C2 |
I saw the Spring return and could rejoice | A2 |
In common with the children of her love | D2 |
Piping on boughs or sporting on fresh fields | E2 |
Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven | F2 |
On wings that navigate cerulean skies | G2 |
So neither were complacency nor peace | H2 |
Nor tender yearnings wanting for my good | I2 |
Through these distracted times in Nature still | J2 |
Glorying I found a counterpoise in her | K2 |
Which when the spirit of evil reached its height | T |
Maintained for me a secret happiness | L2 |
- | |
This narrative my Friend hath chiefly told | M2 |
Of intellectual power fostering love | D2 |
Dispensing truth and over men and things | N2 |
Where reason yet might hesitate diffusing | O2 |
Prophetic sympathies of genial faith | P2 |
So was I favoured such my happy lot | Q2 |
Until that natural graciousness of mind | R2 |
Gave way to overpressure from the times | S2 |
And their disastrous issues What availed | T2 |
When spells forbade the voyager to land | U2 |
That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore | V |
Wafted at intervals from many a bower | K2 |
Of blissful gratitude and fearless love | D2 |
Dare I avow that wish was mine to see | V2 |
And hope that future times 'would' surely see | V2 |
The man to come parted as by a gulph | D2 |
From him who had been that I could no more | V |
Trust the elevation which had made me one | F2 |
With the great family that still survives | W2 |
To illuminate the abyss of ages past | X2 |
Sage warrior patriot hero for it seemed | Y2 |
That their best virtues were not free from taint | Z2 |
Of something false and weak that could not stand | U2 |
The open eye of Reason Then I said | A3 |
Go to the Poets they will speak to thee | V2 |
More perfectly of purer creatures yet | B3 |
If reason be nobility in man | H |
Can aught be more ignoble than the man | H |
Whom they delight in blinded as he is | X |
By prejudice the miserable slave | D2 |
Of low ambition or distempered love | D2 |
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In such strange passion if I may once more | V |
Review the past I warred against myself | D2 |
A bigot to a new idolatry | V2 |
Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world | C3 |
Zealously laboured to cut off my heart | Z |
From all the sources of her former strength | D3 |
And as by simple waving of a wand | E3 |
The wizard instantaneously dissolves | F3 |
Palace or grove even so could I unsoul | J2 |
As readily by syllogistic words | G3 |
Those mysteries of being which have made | F |
And shall continue evermore to make | H3 |
Of the whole human race one brotherhood | I2 |
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What wonder then if to a mind so far | I3 |
Perverted even the visible Universe | J3 |
Fell under the dominion of a taste | K3 |
Less spiritual with microscopic view | D2 |
Was scanned as I had scanned the moral world | C3 |
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O Soul of Nature excellent and fair | L3 |
That didst rejoice with me with whom I too | D2 |
Rejoiced through early youth before the winds | M3 |
And roaring waters and in lights and shades | Y |
That marched and countermarched about the hills | N3 |
In glorious apparition Powers on whom | O3 |
I daily waited now all eye and now | P3 |
All ear but never long without the heart | Z |
Employed and man's unfolding intellect | Q3 |
O Soul of Nature that by laws divine | R3 |
Sustained and governed still dost overflow | J2 |
With an impassioned life what feeble ones | S3 |
Walk on this earth how feeble have I been | T3 |
When thou wert in thy strength Nor this through stroke | U3 |
Of human suffering such as justifies | G2 |
Remissness and inaptitude of mind | R2 |
But through presumption even in pleasure pleased | V3 |
Unworthily disliking here and there | L3 |
Liking by rules of mimic art transferred | W3 |
To things above all art but more for this | X3 |
Although a strong infection of the age | Y3 |
Was never much my habit giving way | Z3 |
To a comparison of scene with scene | A4 |
Bent overmuch on superficial things | N2 |
Pampering myself with meagre novelties | B4 |
Of colour and proportion to the moods | C4 |
Of time and season to the moral power | K2 |
The affections and the spirit of the place | M |
Insensible Nor only did the love | D2 |
Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt | D4 |
My deeper feelings but another cause | E4 |
More subtle and less easily explained | F4 |
That almost seems inherent in the creature | K2 |
A twofold frame of body and of mind | R2 |
I speak in recollection of a time | G4 |
When the bodily eye in every stage of life | D2 |
The most despotic of our senses gained | F4 |
Such strength in 'me' as often held my mind | R2 |
In absolute dominion Gladly here | H4 |
Entering upon abstruser argument | I4 |
Could I endeavour to unfold the means | J4 |
Which Nature studiously employs to thwart | K4 |
This tyranny summons all the senses each | L4 |
To counteract the other and themselves | M4 |
And makes them all and the objects with which all | J2 |
Are conversant subservient in their turn | N4 |
To the great ends of Liberty and Power | K2 |
But leave we this enough that my delights | O4 |
Such as they were were sought insatiably | J2 |
Vivid the transport vivid though not profound | P4 |
I roamed from hill to hill from rock to rock | Q4 |
Still craving combinations of new forms | R4 |
New pleasure wider empire for the sight | T |
Proud of her own endowments and rejoiced | S4 |
To lay the inner faculties asleep | T4 |
Amid the turns and counterturns the strife | D2 |
And various trials of our complex being | O2 |
As we grow up such thraldom of that sense | U4 |
Seems hard to shun And yet I knew a maid | F |
A young enthusiast who escaped these bonds | V4 |
Her eye was not the mistress of her heart | Z |
Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste | K3 |
Or barren intermeddling subtleties | B4 |
Perplex her mind but wise as women are | I3 |
When genial circumstance hath favoured them | W4 |
She welcomed what was given and craved no more | V |
Whate'er the scene presented to her view | D2 |
That was the best to that she was attuned | X4 |
By her benign simplicity of life | D2 |
And through a perfect happiness of soul | J2 |
Whose variegated feelings were in this | X3 |
Sisters that they were each some new delight | T |
Birds in the bower and lambs in the green field | Y4 |
Could they have known her would have loved methought | Y4 |
Her very presence such a sweetness breathed | Y4 |
That flowers and trees and even the silent hills | N3 |
And everything she looked on should have had | Y4 |
An intimation how she bore herself | D2 |
Towards them and to all creatures God delights | O4 |
In such a being for her common thoughts | E |
Are piety her life is gratitude | Y4 |
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Even like this maid before I was called forth | U |
From the retirement of my native hills | N3 |
I loved whate'er I saw nor lightly loved | Y4 |
But most intensely never dreamt of aught | Y4 |
More grand more fair more exquisitely framed | Y4 |
Than those few nooks to which my happy feet | Y4 |
Were limited I had not at that time | G4 |
Lived long enough nor in the least survived | Y4 |
The first diviner influence of this world | Y4 |
As it appears to unaccustomed eyes | G2 |
Worshipping them among the depth of things | N2 |
As piety ordained could I submit | Y4 |
To measured admiration or to aught | Y4 |
That should preclude humility and love | D2 |
I felt observed and pondered did not judge | Z4 |
Yea never thought of judging with the gift | Y4 |
Of all this glory filled and satisfied | Y4 |
And afterwards when through the gorgeous Alps | |
Roaming I carried with me the same heart | Y4 |
In truth the degradation howsoe'er | V |
Induced effect in whatsoe'er degree | V |
Of custom that prepares a partial scale | J2 |
In which the little oft outweighs the great | Y4 |
Or any other cause that hath been named | Y4 |
Or lastly aggravated by the times | S2 |
And their impassioned sounds which well might make | H3 |
The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes | J4 |
Inaudible was transient I had known | |
Too forcibly too early in my life | D2 |
Visitings of imaginative power | V |
For this to last I shook the habit off | D2 |
Entirely and for ever and again | |
In Nature's presence stood as now I stand | Y4 |
A sensitive being a 'creative' soul | J2 |
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There are in our existence spots of time | G4 |
That with distinct pre eminence retain | |
A renovating virtue whence depressed | Y4 |
By false opinion and contentious thought | Y4 |
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight | Y4 |
In trivial occupations and the round | Y4 |
Of ordinary intercourse our minds | |
Are nourished and invisibly repaired | Y4 |
A virtue by which pleasure is enhanced | Y4 |
That penetrates enables us to mount | Y4 |
When high more high and lifts us up when fallen | F2 |
This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks | |
Among those passages of life that give | D2 |
Profoundest knowledge to what point and how | P3 |
The mind is lord and master outward sense | U4 |
The obedient servant of her will Such moments | |
Are scattered everywhere taking their date | Y4 |
From our first childhood I remember well | J2 |
That once while yet my inexperienced hand | Y4 |
Could scarcely hold a bridle with proud hopes | |
I mounted and we journeyed towards the hills | N3 |
An ancient servant of my father's house | |
Was with me my encourager and guide | Y4 |
We had not travelled long ere some mischance | |
Disjoined me from my comrade and through fear | V |
Dismounting down the rough and stony moor | V |
I led my horse and stumbling on at length | D3 |
Came to a bottom where in former times | |
A murderer had been hung in iron chains | |
The gibbet mast had mouldered down the bones | |
And iron case were gone but on the turf | D2 |
Hard by soon after that fell deed was wrought | Y4 |
Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name | |
The monumental letters were inscribed | Y4 |
In times long past but still from year to year | V |
By superstition of the neighbourhood | Y4 |
The grass is cleared away and to this hour | V |
The characters are fresh and visible | J2 |
A casual glance had shown them and I fled | Y4 |
Faltering and faint and ignorant of the road | Y4 |
Then reascending the bare common saw | |
A naked pool that lay beneath the hills | |
The beacon on the summit and more near | V |
A girl who bore a pitcher on her head | Y4 |
And seemed with difficult steps to force her way | Z3 |
Against the blowing wind It was in truth | |
An ordinary sight but I should need | Y4 |
Colours and words that are unknown to man | H |
To paint the visionary dreariness | |
Which while I looked all round for my lost guide | Y4 |
Invested moorland waste and naked pool | J2 |
The beacon crowning the lone eminence | |
The female and her garments vexed and tossed | Y4 |
By the strong wind When in the blessed hours | |
Of early love the loved one at my side | Y4 |
I roamed in daily presence of this scene | A4 |
Upon the naked pool and dreary crags | |
And on the melancholy beacon fell | J2 |
A spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam | |
And think ye not with radiance more sublime | G4 |
For these remembrances and for the power | V |
They had left behind So feeling comes in aid | Y4 |
Of feeling and diversity of strength | D3 |
Attends us if but once we have been strong | |
Oh mystery of man from what a depth | |
Proceed thy honours I am lost but see | |
In simple childhood something of the base | |
On which thy greatness stands but this I feel | J2 |
That from thyself it comes that thou must give | D2 |
Else never canst receive The days gone by | |
Return upon me almost from the dawn | |
Of life the hiding places of man's power | V |
Open I would approach them but they close | |
I see by glimpses now when age comes on | |
May scarcely see at all and I would give | D2 |
While yet we may as far as words can give | D2 |
Substance and life to what I feel enshrining | |
Such is my hope the spirit of the Past | Y4 |
For future restoration Yet another | V |
Of these memorials | |
One Christmas time | G4 |
On the glad eve of its dear holidays | |
Feverish and tired and restless I went forth | U |
Into the fields impatient for the sight | Y4 |
Of those led palfreys that should bear us home | |
My brothers and myself There rose a crag | |
That from the meeting point of two highways | |
Ascending overlooked them both far stretched | Y4 |
Thither uncertain on which road to fix | |
My expectation thither I repaired | Y4 |
Scout like and gained the summit 'twas a day | Z3 |
Tempestuous dark and wild and on the grass | |
I sate half sheltered by a naked wall | J2 |
Upon my right hand couched a single sheep | T4 |
Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood | Y4 |
With those companions at my side I watched | Y4 |
Straining my eyes intensely as the mist | Y4 |
Gave intermitting prospect of the copse | |
And plain beneath Ere we to school returned | Y4 |
That dreary time ere we had been ten days | |
Sojourners in my father's house he died | Y4 |
And I and my three brothers orphans then | |
Followed his body to the grave The event | Y4 |
With all the sorrow that it brought appeared | Y4 |
A chastisement and when I called to mind | Y4 |
That day so lately past when from the crag | |
I looked in such anxiety of hope | |
With trite reflections of morality | |
Yet in the deepest passion I bowed low | J2 |
To God Who thus corrected my desires | |
And afterwards the wind and sleety rain | |
And all the business of the elements | |
The single sheep and the one blasted tree | |
And the bleak music from that old stone wall | J2 |
The noise of wood and water and the mist | Y4 |
That on the line of each of those two roads | |
Advanced in such indisputable shapes | |
All these were kindred spectacles and sounds | |
To which I oft repaired and thence would drink | |
As at a fountain and on winter nights | |
Down to this very time when storm and rain | |
Beat on my roof or haply at noon day | Z3 |
While in a grove I walk whose lofty trees | |
Laden with summer's thickest foliage rock | |
In a strong wind some working of the spirit | Y4 |
Some inward agitations thence are brought | Y4 |
Whate'er their office whether to beguile | J2 |
Thoughts over busy in the course they took | |
Or animate an hour of vacant ease |
William Wordsworth
(1)
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