Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/216

194 Were its admonishments, nor lightly heard

The awful truths delivered thence by tongues

Endowed with various power to search the soul;

Yet ostentation, domineering, oft

Poured forth harangues, how sadly out of place!—

There have I seen a comely bachelor,

Fresh from a toilette of two hours, ascend

His rostrum, with seraphic glance look up,

And, in a tone elaborately low

Beginning, lead his voice through many a maze

A minuet course; and, winding up his mouth,

From time to time, into an orifice

Most delicate, a lurking eyelet, small,

And only not invisible, again

Open it out, diffusing thence a smile

Of rapt irradiation, exquisite.

Meanwhile the Evangelists, Isaiah, Job,

Moses, and he who penned, the other day,

The Death of Abel, Shakspeare, and the Bard

Whose genius spangled o'er a gloomy theme

With fancies thick as his inspiring stars,

And Ossian (doubt not, 'tis the naked truth)

Summoned from streamy Morven—each and all

Would, in their turns, lend ornaments and flowers

To entwine the crook of eloquence that helped