Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/38

12 The moral properties and scope of things.

But eagerly he read, and read again,

Whate'er the Minister's old Shelf supplied;

The life and death of Martyrs, who sustained,

With will inflexible, those fearful pangs

Triumphantly displayed in records left

Of Persecution, and the Covenant—Times

Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour!

And there by lucky hap had been preserved

A straggling volume, torn and incomplete,

That left half-told the preternatural tale,

Romance of Giants, chronicle of Fiends

Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts

Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,

Sharp-knee'd, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too,

With long and ghostly shanks—forms which once seen

Could never be forgotten!

In his heart

Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,

Was wanting yet the pure delight of love

By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,

Or by the silent looks of happy things,