Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/94

68 The small birds find in spring no thicket there

To shroud them; only from the neighbouring Vales

The Cuckoo straggling up to the hill tops

Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place.

Ah! what a sweet Recess, thought I, is here!

Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease

Upon a bed of heath;—full many a spot

Of hidden beauty have I chanced to espy

Among the mountains; never one like this;

So lonesome, and so perfectly secure:

Not melancholy—no, for it is green,

And bright, and fertile, furnished in itself

With the few needful things which life requires.

—In rugged arms how soft it seems to lie,

How tenderly protected! Far and near

We have an image of the pristine earth,

The planet in its nakedness; were this

Man's only dwelling, sole appointed seat,

First, last, and single in the breathing world,

It could not be more quiet: peace is here

Or no where; days unruffled by the gale

Of public news or private; years that pass