Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/173

147 And, since their date, my Soul hath undergone

Change manifold, for better, or for worse:

Yet cease I not to struggle, and to aspire

Heavenward; and chide the part of me that flags,

Through sinful choice; or dread necessity,

On human Nature, from above, imposed.

'Tis, by comparison, an easy task

Earth to despise; but to converse with Heaven,

This is not easy:—to relinquish all

We have, or hope, of happiness and joy,—

And stand in freedom loosened from this world;

I deem not arduous:—but must needs confess

That 'tis a thing impossible to frame

Conceptions equal to the Soul's desires;

And the most difficult of tasks to keep

Heights which the Soul is competent to gain.

—Man is of dust: etherial Hopes are his,

Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,

Want due consistence; like a Pillar of smoke,

That with majestic energy from earth

Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,

Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen.

From this infirmity of mortal kind