Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/164

138 Free as the Sun, and lonely as the Sun,

Pouring above his head its radiance down

Upon a living, and rejoicing World!

So, westward, tow'rd the unviolated Woods

I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide,

Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird;

And while the melancholy Muccawiss

(The sportive Bird's companion in the Grove)

Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry,

I sympathized at leisure with the sound;

But that pure Archetype of human greatness,

I found him not. There, in his stead, appeared

A Creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure;

Remorseless, and submissive to no law

But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.

—Enough is told! Here am I—Ye have heard

What evidence I seek, and vainly seek;

What from my Fellow-beings I require,

And cannot find; what I myself have lost,

Nor can regain; how languidly I look

Upon this visible fabric of the World,