Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/148

122 In privacy we dwelt—a wedded pair

Companions daily, often all day long;

Not placed by fortune within easy reach

Of various intercourse, nor wishing aught

Beyond the allowance of our own fire-side,

The Twain within our happy cottage born,

Inmates, and heirs of our united love;

Graced mutually by difference of sex,

By the endearing names of nature bound,

And with no wider interval of time

Between their several births than served for One

To establish something of a leader's sway;

Yet left them joined by sympathy in age;

Equals in pleasure, fellows in pursuit.

On these two pillars rested as in air

Our solitude.

It soothes me to perceive,

Your courtesy withholds not from my words

Attentive audience. But oh! gentle Friends,

As times of quiet and unbroken peace

Though for a Nation times of blessedness,

Give back faint echoes from the Historian's page;

So, in the imperfect sounds of this discourse,