Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/215

155 For passions linked to forms so fair

And stately needs must have their share

Of noble sentiment.

But ill he lived, much evil saw

With men to whom no better law

Nor better life was known;

Deliberately and undeceived

Those wild men's vices he received,

And gave them back his own.

His genius and his moral frame

Were thus impaired, and he became

The slave of low desires:

A Man who without self-control

Would seek what the degraded soul

Unworthily admires.

And yet he with no feigned delight

Had wooed the maiden, day and night

Had loved her, night and morn:

What could he less than love a Maid

Whose heart with so much nature played?

So kind and so forlorn!