Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/67

41 A momentary trance comes over me;

And to myself I seem to muse on One

By sorrow laid asleep;—or borne away,

A human being destined to awake

To human life, or something very near

To human life, when he shall come again

For whom she suffered. Yes, it would have grieved

Your very soul to see her: evermore

Her eyelids drooped, her eyes were downward cast;

And, when she at her table gave me food,

She did not look at me. Her voice was low,

Her body was subdued. In every act

Pertaining to her house affairs, appeared

The careless stillness of a thinking mind

Self-occupied; to which all outward things

Are like an idle matter. Still she sighed,

But yet no motion of the breast was seen,

No heaving of the heart. While by the fire

We sate together, sighs came on my ear,

I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.

Ere my departure to her care I gave,

For her Son's use, some tokens of regard,