Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/256

230 Your further help? The mine of real life

Dig for us; and present us, in the shape

Of virgin ore, that gold which we by pains

Fruitless as those of aery Alchemists

Seek from the torturing crucible. There lies

Around us a Domain where You have long

Held spiritual sway, have guided and consoled,

And watched the outward course and inner heart.

Give us, for our abstractions, solid facts;

For our disputes, plain pictures. Say what Man

He is who cultivates yon hanging field;

What qualities of mind She bears, who comes,

For morn and evening service, with her pail,

To that green pasture; place before our sight

The Family who dwell within yon House

Fenced round with glittering laurel; or in that

Below, from which the curling smoke ascends.

Or rather, as we stand on holy earth

And have the Dead around us, take from them

Your instances; for they are both best known,

And by frail Man most equitably judged.

Epitomize the life; pronounce, You can,

Authentic epitaphs on some of these