Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/420

394 They cannot lean, nor turn to their own hearts

To know what they must do; their wisdom is

To look into the eyes of others, thence

To be instructed what they must avoid:

Or rather let us say, how least observed,

How with most quiet and most silent death,

With the least taint and injury to the air

The Oppressor breathes, their human Form divine,

And their immortal Soul, may waste away."

The Sage rejoined, "I thank you—you have spared

My voice the utterance of a keen regret,

A wide compassion which with you I share.

When, heretofore, I placed before your sight

A most familiar object of our days,

A Little-one, subjected to the Arts

Of modern ingenuity, and made

The senseless member of a vast machine,

Serving as doth a spindle or a wheel;

Think not, that, pitying him, I could forget

The rustic Boy, who walks the fields, untaught;

The Slave of ignorance, and oft of want,

And miserable hunger. Much too much