A humble walk Here is my body doomed to tread, this path, A little hoary line and faintly traced,[249] 55 Work, shall we call it, of the shepherd’s foot Or of his flock?--joint vestige of them both. I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts Admit no bondage and my words have wings. Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, 60 To accompany the verse? The mountain blast Shall be our _hand_ of music; he shall sweep The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake, And search the fibres of the caves, and they Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds 65 And the wind loves them; and the gentle gales-- Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn With annual verdure, and revive the woods, And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers-- Love them; and every idle breeze of air 70 Bends to the favourite burthen. Moon and stars Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds Watch also, shifting peaceably their place Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie, As if some Protean art the change had wrought, 75 In listless quiet o’er the ethereal deep Scattered, a Cyclades[250] of various shapes And all degrees of beauty. O ye Lightnings! Ye are their perilous offspring;[251] and the Sun-- Source inexhaustible of life and joy, 80 And type of man’s far-darting reason, therefore In old time worshipped as the god of verse,[252] A blazing intellectual deity-- Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood 85 Visions with all but beatific light Enriched--too transient were they not renewed From age to age, and did not, while we gaze In silent rapture, credulous desire Nourish the hope that memory lacks not power 90 To keep the treasure unimpaired. Vain thought! Yet why repine, created as we are For joy and rest, albeit to find them only Lodged in the bosom of eternal things? [241] The title in the edition of 1842 was _Address to the Clouds_.--ED. [242] See the Fenwick note and compare Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere Journal, 31st January 1802.--ED. [243] 1842. … in … MS. [244] 1842. … wind MS. [245] 1842. … on … MS. [246] 1842. … over dale and mountain height MS. [247] 1842. … mother’s joyous lap? MS. [248] 1842. Or come ye as I hailed you first, a Flight Aerial, on a due migration bound, Embodied travellers not blindly led To milder climes; or rather do ye urge Your Caravan, your hasty pilgrimage With hope to pause at last upon the top Of some remoter mountains more beloved Than these, … MS.