Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 1, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/136

84 And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,

And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,

By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies

Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed

By sights of ever more deformity!

With other ministrations thou, O nature!

Healest thy wandering and distempered child:

Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,

Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,

Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,

Till he relent, and can no more endure

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing,

Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;

But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,

His angry spirit healed and harmonized

By the benignant touch of love and beauty.