Fragment uit The Prelude: The boat stealing scene

 

William Wordsworth: boat stealing scene

1799 version

 

I went alone into a Shepherd’s boat,

A skiff, that to a willow-tree was tied

Within a rocky cave, its usual home.

The moon was up, the lake was shining clear

Among the hoary mountains; from the shore

I pushed, and struck the oars, and struck again

In cadence, and my little boat moved on

Just like a man who walks with stately step

Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth

And troubled pleasure. Not without the voice

Of mountain echoes did my boat move on,

Leaving behind her still on either side

Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

Until they melted all into one track

Of sparkling light. A rocky steep uprose

Above the cavern of the willow-tree,

And now, as suited one who proudly rowed

With his best skill, I fixed a steady view

Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,

The bound of the horizon—for behind

Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

She was an elfin pinnace; twenty times

I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And as I rose upon the stroke my boat

Went heaving through the water like a swan –

When from behind that rocky steep, till then

The bound of the horizon, a huge cliff,

As if voluntary power instinct,

Upreared its head. I struck, and struck again,

And, growing still in stature, the huge cliff

Rose up between me and the stars, and still,

With measured motion, like a living thing

Strode after me. With trembling hands I turned,

And through the silent water stole my way

Back to the cavern of the willow tree.

There in her mooring-place I left my bark,

And through the meadows homeward went with grave

And serious thoughts; and after I had seen

That spectacle, for many days my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

Of unknown modes of being. In my thoughts

There was a darkness – call it solitude,

Or blank desertion – no familiar shapes

Of hourly objects, images of trees,

Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields,

But huge and mighty forms that do not live

Like living men moved slowly through my mind

By day, and were the trouble of my dreams.

 

 

Fragment uit "The Prelude" over de rivier Derwent

William Wordsworth

...
Was it for this
That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved 
To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
O Derwent! winding among grassy holms
Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,
Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind
A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves.
...