Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/358

332 Thy gifts were utterly withheld from Him

Whose place of rest is near yon ivied Porch.

Yet, of the wild brooks ask if he complained;

Ask of the channelled rivers if they held

A safer, easier, more determined course.

What terror doth it strike into the mind

To think of One, who cannot see, advancing

Towards some precipice's airy brink!

But, timely warned, He would have stayed his steps;

Protected, say enlightened, by his ear,

And on the very brink of vacancy

Not more endangered than a Man whose eye

Beholds the gulph beneath.—No floweret blooms

Throughout the lofty range of these rough hills,

Or in the woods, that could from him conceal

Its birth-place; none whose figure did not live

Upon his touch. The bowels of the earth

Enriched with knowledge his industrious mind;

The ocean paid him tribute from the stores

Lodged in her bosom; and, by science led,

His genius mounted to the plains of Heaven.

—Methinks I see him—how his eye-balls rolled,

Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired,—