Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/278

252 For her defence, replenished with a Band

Of strenuous Champions, in scholastic arts

Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course

Of the revolving World's disturbances

Cause should recur, which righteous Heaven avert!

To meet such trial) from their spiritual Sires

Degenerate; who, constrained to wield the sword

Of disputation, shrunk not, though assailed

With hostile din, and combating in sight

Of angry umpires, partial and unjust.

And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,

So to declare the conscience satisfied:

Nor for their bodies would accept release,

But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed,

With their last breath, from out the smouldering flame,

The faith which they by diligence had earned,

And through illuminating grace received,

For their dear Country-men, and all mankind.

O high example, constancy divine!

Even such a Man (inheriting the zeal

And from the sanctity of elder times

Not deviating,—a Priest, the like of whom,