Quote of the Day (William Wordsworth, on a Valley Glimpsed in Childhood)

“The place from which I looked was soft and green,

Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth

Of Vale below, a height of Hills above.

Long did I halt; I could have made it even

My business and my errand so to halt.

For rest of body ’twas a perfect place,

All that luxurious nature could desire,

But tempting to the Spirit; who could look

And not feel motions there? I thought of clouds

That sail on winds; of breezes that delight

To play on water, or in endless chase

Pursue each other through the liquid depths

Of grass or corn, over and through and through,

In billow after billow, evermore;

Of Sunbeams, Shadows, Butterflies and Birds,

Angels and winged Creatures that are Lords

Without restraint of all which they behold.

I sate and stirred in Spirit as I looked,

I seemed to feel such liberty was mine,

Such power and joy; but only for this end,

To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,

From shore to island, and from isle to shore,

From open place to covert, from a bed

Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood,

From high to low, from low to high, yet still

Within the bounds of this huge Concave; here

Should be my home, this Valley be my World.”— English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), from “Home at Grasmere,” composed 1800-1906, in William Wordsworth: The Major Works. Including “The Prelude,” edited by Stephen Gill (1984)