WORDSWORTH'S LANDSCAPE 127 



The thought of these glimpses led to one of the noblest 

 outbursts in the whole range of his poetry, where he gives 

 way to the exuberance of his delight in feeling himself, 

 to use Byron's expression, 'a portion of the tempest' — 



' To roam at large among unpeopled glens 

 And mountainous retirements, only trod 

 By devious footsteps; regions consecrate 

 To oldest time ; and reckless of the storm, 



while the mists 

 Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes 

 And phantoms from the crags and solid earth, 



and while the streams 

 Descending from the region of the clouds, 

 And starting from the hollows of the earth, 

 More multitudinous every moment, rend 

 Their way before them — what a joy to roam 

 An equal among mightiest energies ! ' 



In this passage Wordsworth seems to have had what 

 he would have called ' a foretaste, a dim earnest ' of 

 that marvellous enlargement of the charm and interest 

 of scenery due to the progress of modern science. 

 When he speaks of c regions consecrate to oldest time,' 

 he has a vague feeling that somehow his glens and 

 mountains belonged to a hoary antiquity, such as could 

 be claimed by none of the verdant plains around. Had 

 he written half a century later he would have enjoyed 

 a clearer perception of the vastness of that antiquity 

 and of the long succession of events with which it 

 was crowded. 1 



1 Sedgwick did his best to enlighten the poet by his famous 

 Four Letters on the Geology of the Lake District ; but these came too 

 late. They were published at Kendal in 1 846, and Wordsworth 

 died in 1850. 



