Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/401

375 As abject, as degraded? At this day,

Who shall enumerate the crazy huts

And tottering hovels, whence do issue forth

A ragged Offspring, with their own blanched hair

Crowned like the image of fantastic Fear;

Or wearing, we might say, in that white growth

An ill-adjusted turban, for defence

Or fierceness, wreathed around their sun-burnt brows,

By savage Nature's unassisted care.

Naked and coloured like the soil, the feet

On which they stand; as if thereby they drew

Some nourishment, as Trees do by their roots,

From Earth the common Mother of us all.

Figure and mien, complexion and attire,

Are framed to strike dismay, but the outstretched hand

And whining voice denote them Supplicants

For the least boon that pity can bestow.

Such on the breast of darksome heaths are found;

And with their Parents dwell upon the skirts

Of furze-clad commons; and are born and reared

At the mine's mouth, beneath impending rocks,

Or in the chambers of some natural cave;

And where their Ancestors erected huts,