Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/92

84 I well remember.—He was one who owned

No common soul. In youth by science nursed,

And led by nature into a wild scene

Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth

A favoured Being, knowing no desire

Which Genius did not hallow,—'gainst the taint

Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,

And scorn,—against all enemies prepared,

All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,

Owed him no service: wherefore he at once

With indignation turned himself away,

And with the food of pride sustained his soul

In solitude.—Stranger! these gloomy boughs

Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,

His only visitants a straggling sheep,

The stone-chat, or the sand-lark, restless Bird

Piping along the margin of the lake;

And on these barren rocks, with juniper,

And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er,

Fixing his down-cast eye, he many an hour

A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here

An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

And lifting up his head, he then would gaze

On the more distant scene,—how lovely 'tis