from The Prelude

William Wordsworth

. . . But who shall parcel out

His intellect by geometric rules,

Split like a province into round and square?

Who knows the individual hour in which

His habits were first sown, even as a seed?

Lines like these are why copying out all of The Prelude, word for word, has not been a waste of time.

Quarter of seven: a blank morning, and the barn dog is barking, barking, barking. Now a car murmurs past on the road; a truck bustles behind; and then a fading into the east, and then silence. Even the dog collapses to stillness. There is no wind. The trees are mute against a dishwater sky.

Yesterday afternoon I could not write one useful word.

As Wordsworth reminds me, "Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind, / If each most obvious and particular thought, / . . . / Hath no beginning."