The Prelude Book 1

One summer evening (led by her) I found a little boat tied to a willow tree within a rocky cave, its usual home. Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth and troubled pleasure, nor 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. But now, like one who rows, proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point with an unswerving line, I fixed my view

upon the summit of a craggy ridge, The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin pinnace; lustily 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 craggy steep till then the horizon’s bound, a huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct upreared its head. I struck and struck again, and growing still in stature the grim shape towered up between me and the stars, and still, for so it seemed, with purpose of its own and measured motion like a living thing, strode after me.

BLIGHT OF THE FUMBLE BEE

Butterfly Days