Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/42

16 The purer elements of truth involved

In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe,

(Especially perceived where nature droops

And feeling is suppressed,) preserve the mind

Busy in solitude and poverty.

These occupations oftentimes deceived

The listless hours, while in the hollow vale,

Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf

In pensive idleness. What could he do

With blind endeavours, in that lonesome life,

Thus thirsting daily? Yet still uppermost

Nature was at his heart as if he felt,

Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power

In all things which from her sweet influence

Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues,

Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,

He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.

While yet he lingered in the rudiments

Of science, and among her simplest laws,

His triangles—they were the stars of heaven,

The silent stars! Oft did he take delight

To measure th' altitude of some tall crag

Which is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak