Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/455

429 Nor is he moved with all the Thunder-cracks

Of Tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow

Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;

Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.

The storms of sad confusion that may grow

Up in the present for the coming times,

Appal not him; that hath no side at all,

But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth)

Cannot but pity the perplexed state

Of troublous and distress'd mortality,

That thus make way unto the ugly Birth

Of their own Sorrows, and do still beget

Affliction upon Imbecility:

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,

He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught Ambition compasses,

And is encompass'd, while as Craft deceives:

And is deceiv'd: whilst Man doth ransack Man,

And builds on blood, and rises by distress;

And th'Inheritance of desolation leaves

To great-expecting Hopes: He looks thereon,

As from the shore of Peace, with unwet eye,

And bears no venture in Impiety.

Thus, Lady, fares that Man that hath prepared

A Rest for his desires; and sees all things

Beneath him; and hath learn'd this Book of Man,

Full of the notes of frailty; and compar'd