...  Eve following eve, Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed, And more desired, more precious for thy song, In silence listening, like a devout child, My soul lay passive, by thy various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth, Fair constellated foam, [C] still darting off Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

    And when—­O Friend! my comforter and guide! 
  Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!—­
  Thy long-sustained Song finally closed,
  And thy deep voice had ceased—­yet thou thyself
  Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
  That happy vision of beloved faces—­
  Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
  I sate, my being blended in one thought
  (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
  Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound—­
  And when I rose I found myself in prayer.

It was at Coleorton, in Leicestershire,—­where the Wordsworths lived during the winter of 1806-7, in a farm-house belonging to Sir George Beaumont, and where Coleridge visited them,—­that ‘The Prelude’ was read aloud by its author, on the occasion which gave birth to these lines.—­Ed.

[Footnote A:  See the ‘De Quincey Memorials,’ vol. i. p. 125.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  A poem on his brother John.—­Ed.]

[Footnote C:  Compare

“A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals, coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it:  and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel’s side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness.”

S. T. C. in ‘Biographia Literaria’, Satyrane’s Letters, letter i. p. 196 (edition 1817).—­Ed.]

* * * * *

BOOK FIRST

INTRODUCTION.—­CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME

  O there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
  A visitant that while it fans my cheek
  Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
  From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. 
  Whate’er its mission, the soft breeze can come 5
  To none more grateful than to me; escaped
  From the vast city, [A] where I long had pined
  A discontented sojourner:  now free,
  Free as a bird to settle where I will. 
  What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale 10
  Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
  Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
  Shall with its murmur lull me into rest? 
  The earth is all before me. [B] With a heart
  Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,