Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/150

124 With thoughts and wishes bounded to this world,

I lived and breathed; most grateful, if to enjoy

Without repining or desire for more,

For different lot, or change to higher sphere,

(Only except some impulses of pride

With no determined object, though upheld

By theories with suitable support)

Most grateful, if in such wise to enjoy

Be proof of gratitude for what we have;

Else, I allow, most thankless.—But at once

From some dark seat of fatal Power was urged

A claim that shattered all.—Our blooming Girl,

Caught in the gripe of Death, with such brief time

To struggle in as scarcely would allow

Her cheek to change its colour, was conveyed

From us, to regions inaccessible;

Where height, or depth, admits not the approach

Of living Man, though longing to pursue.

—With even as brief a warning—and how soon

With what short interval of time between

I tremble yet to think of—our last prop,

Our happy life's only remaining stay—

The Brother followed; and was seen no more!