Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/218

196 But foolishness and madness in parade,

Though most at home in this their dear domain,

Are scattered everywhere, no rarities,

Even to the rudest novice of the Schools.

Me, rather, it employed, to note, and keep

In memory, those individual sights

Of courage, or integrity, or truth,

Or tenderness, which there, set off by foil,

Appeared more touching. One will I select;

A Father—for he bore that sacred name—

Him saw I, sitting in an open square,

Upon a corner-stone of that low wall,

Wherein were fixed the iron pales that fenced

A spacious grass-plot; there, in silence, sate

This One Man, with a sickly babe outstretched

Upon his knee, whom he had thither brought

For sunshine, and to breathe the fresher air.

Of those who passed, and me who looked at him,

He took no heed; but in his brawny arms

(The Artificer was to the elbow bare,

And from his work this moment had been stolen)

He held the child, and, bending over it,

As if he were afraid both of the sun

And of the air, which he had come to seek,

Eyed the poor babe with love unutterable.