Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/369

343 By his ingenuous beauty, by the gleam

Of his fair eyes, by his capacious brow,

By all the graces with which nature's hand

Had bounteously arrayed him. As old Bards

Tell in their idle songs of wandering Gods,

Pan or Apollo, veiled in human form;

Yet, like the sweet-breathed violet of the shade,

Discovered in their own despite to sense

Of Mortals, (if such fables without blame

May find chance-mention on this sacred ground)

So, through a simple rustic garb's disguise,

And through the impediment of rural cares,

In him revealed a Scholar's genius shone;

And so, not wholly hidden from men's sight,

In him the spirit of a Hero walked

Our unpretending valley.—How the coit

Whizzed from the Stripling's arm! If touched by him

The inglorious foot-ball mounted to the pitch

Of the Lark's flight,—or shaped a rain-bow curve,

Aloft, in prospect of the shouting field!

The indefatigable Fox had learned

To dread his perseverance in the chace.

With admiration he could lift his eyes