Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air. Then up I rose, And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless ravage: and the shady nook 45 Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being: and unless I now Confound my present feelings with the past, Ere from the mutilated bower I turned 50 Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings, I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky.-- Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand 55 Touch,--for there is a spirit in the woods. 5. OUR COTTAGE THRESHOLD. "The house at which I was boarded during the time I was at school." (Wordsworth's note, 1800). The school was the Hawkshead School. 9. TRICKED OUT=_dressed_. The verb "to trick"="to dress" is derived probably from the noun, "trick" in the sense of 'a dexterous artifice,' 'a touch.' See "Century Dictionary." CAST-OFF WEEDS=_cast-off clothes_. Wordsworth originally wrote 'of Beggar's weeds.' What prompted him to change the expression? 10. FOR THAT SERVICE. i.e., for nutting. 12-13. OF POWER TO SMILE AT THORNS=_able to defy_, etc. Not because of their strength, but because so ragged that additional rents were of small account. 21. VIRGIN=_unmarred, undevastated_. 31. Explain the line. Notice the poetical way in which the poet conveys the idea of solitude, (l. 30-32). 33. FAIRY WATER-BREAKS=_wavelets, ripples_. _Cf_.:-- Many a silvery _water-break_ Above the golden gravel. Tennyson, _The Brook_. 36. FLEECED WITH MOSS. Suggest a reason why the term "fleeced" has peculiar appropriateness here. 39-40. Paraphrase these lines to bring out their meaning. 43-48. THEN UP I ROSE. Contrast this active exuberant pleasure not unmixed with pain with the passive meditative joy that the preceding lines express. 47-48. PATIENTLY GAVE UP THEIR QUIET BEING. Notice the attribution of life to inanimate nature. Wordsworth constantly held that there was a mind and all the attributes of mind in nature. _Cf_. l. 56, "for there is a spirit in the woods." 53. AND SAW THE INTRUDING SKY. Bring out the force of this passage. 54. THEN, DEAREST MAIDEN. This is a reference to the poet's Sister, Dorothy Wordsworth. 56. FOR THERE IS A SPIRIT IN THE WOODS. _Cf. Tintern Abbey_, 101 f. A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS