Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/266

240 And from the private struggles of mankind

Hoping for less than I could wish to hope,

Far less than once I trusted and believed—

I love to hear of Those, who, not contending

Nor summoned to contend for Virtue's prize,

Miss not the humbler good at which they aim;

Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt

The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn

Into their contraries the petty plagues

And hindrances with which they stand beset.

—In early youth among my native hills

I knew a Scottish Peasant who possessed

A few small Crofts of stone-encumbered ground;

Masses of every shape and size, that lay

Scattered about beneath the mouldering walls

Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,

In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,

As if the moon had showered them down in spite,

But he repined not. Though the plough was scared

By these obstructions, "round the shady stones

A fertilizing moisture," said the Swain,

"Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews

"And damps, through all the droughty Summer day,