Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/49

23 The strong hand of her purity; and still

Had watched him with an unrelenting eye.

This he remembered in his riper age

With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.

But by the native vigour of his mind,

By his habitual wanderings out of doors,

By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,

Whate'er in docile childhood or in youth

He had imbibed of fear or darker thought

Was melted all away: so true was this

That sometimes his religion seemed to me

Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;

Who to the model of his own pure heart

Framed his belief, as grace divine inspired,

Or human reason dictated with awe.

—And surely never did there live on earth

A Man of kindlier nature. The rough sports

And teazing ways of Children vexed not him,

Nor could he bid them from his presence, tired

With questions and importunate demands:

Indulgent listener was he to the tongue

Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale,