Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/213

187 By each new upstart Notion? In the ports

Of levity no refuge can be found,

No shelter, for a spirit in distress.

He, who by wilful disesteem of life

And proud insensibility to hope

Affronts the eye of Solitude, shall learn

That her mild nature can be terrible;

That neither she nor Silence lack the power

To avenge their own insulted Majesty.

—O blest seclusion! when the Mind admits

The law of duty; and thereby can live,

Through each vicissitude of loss and gain,

Linked in entire complacence with her choice;

When Youth's presumptuousness is mellowed down,

And Manhood's vain anxiety dismissed;

When Wisdom shews her seasonable fruit,

Upon the boughs of sheltering leisure hung

In sober plenty; when the spirit stoops

To drink with gratitude the chrystal stream

Of unreproved enjoyment; and is pleased

To muse,—and be saluted by the air

Of meek repentance, wafting wall-flower scents

From out the crumbling ruins of fallen Pride