Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/316

290 "Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly Creature,

"One of God's simple children that yet know not

"The universal Parent, how he sings

"As if he wished, the firmament of Heaven

"Should listen, and give back to him the voice

"Of his triumphant constancy and love;

"The proclamation that he makes, how far

"His darkness doth transcend our fickle light!"

Such was the tender passage, not by me

Repeated without loss of simple phrase,

Which I perused, even as the words had been

Committed by forsaken Ellen's hand

To the blank margin of a Valentine,

Bedropped with tears. 'Twill please you to be told

That, studiously withdrawing from the eye

Of all companionship, the Sufferer yet

In lonely reading found a meek resource.

How thankful for the warmth of summer days,

And their long twilight!—friendly to that stealth

With which she slipped into the Cottage-barn,

And found a secret oratory there;

Or, in the garden, pored upon her book