Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/125

99 Who to the Solitary turned, and said,

"In sooth, with love's familiar privilege,

You have decried, in no unseemly terms

Of modesty, that wealth which is your own.

Among these Rocks and Stones, methinks, I see

More than the heedless impress that belongs

To lonely Nature's casual work: they bear

A semblance strange of power intelligent,

And of design not wholly worn away.

Boldest of plants that ever faced the wind,

How gracefully that slender Shrub looks forth

From its fantastic birth-place! And I own,

Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,

I cannot but incline to a belief

That in these shows a chronicle survives

Of purposes akin to those of Man,

But wrought with mightier arm than now prevails.

—Voiceless the Stream descends into the gulph

With timid lapse;—and lo! while in this Strait

I stand—the chasm of sky above my head

Is heaven's profoundest azure; no domain

For fickle, short-lived clouds to occupy,

Or to pass through, but rather an Abyss