’Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits
  Amid the undistinguishable crowd
  Of cities, ’mid the same eternal flow
  Of the same objects, melted and reduced
  To one identity, by differences
  That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
  Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
  And shall we think that Nature is less kind
  To those, who all day long, through a busy life,
  Have walked within her sight?  It cannot be.’

Ed.]

* * * * *

BOOK EIGHT

RETROSPECT—­LOVE OF NATURE LEADING TO LOVE OF MAN

  What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that [1] are heard
  Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
  Ascending, as if distance had the power
  To make the sounds more audible?  What crowd
  Covers, or sprinkles o’er, yon village green? [2] 5
  Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
  Though but a little family of men,
  Shepherds and tillers of the ground—­betimes
  Assembled with their children and their wives,
  And here and there a stranger interspersed. 10
  They hold a rustic fair—­a festival,
  Such as, on this side now, and now on that, [3]
  Repeated through his tributary vales,
  Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,
  Sees annually, [A] if clouds towards either ocean 15
  Blown from their favourite resting-place, or mists
  Dissolved, have left him [4] an unshrouded head. 
  Delightful day it is for all who dwell
  In this secluded glen, and eagerly
  They give it welcome. [5] Long ere heat of noon, 20
  From byre or field the kine were brought; the sheep [6]
  Are penned in cotes; the chaffering is begun. 
  The heifer lows, uneasy at the voice
  Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud. 
  Booths are there none; a stall or two is here; 25
  A lame man or a blind, the one to beg,
  The other to make music; hither, too,
  From far, with basket, slung upon her arm,
  Of hawker’s wares—­books, pictures, combs, and pins—­
  Some aged woman finds her way again, 30
  Year after year, a punctual visitant! 
  There also stands a speech-maker by rote,
  Pulling the strings of his boxed raree-show;
  And in the lapse of many years may come [7]
  Prouder itinerant, mountebank, or he 35
  Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid. 
  But one there is, [8] the loveliest of them all,
  Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out
  For gains, and who that sees her would not buy? 
  Fruits of her father’s orchard, are her wares, 40
  And with the ruddy produce, she walks round [9]
  Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed