Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/274

252 Among mankind he was in service bound,

As by some tie invisible, oaths professed

To a religious order. Man he loved

As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,

And all the homely in their homely works,

Transferred a courtesy which had no air

Of condescension; but did rather seem

A passion and a gallantry, like that

Which he, a soldier, in his idler day

Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,

Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,

But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy

Diffused around him, while he was intent

On works of love or freedom, or revolved

Complacently the progress of a cause,

Whereof he was a part: yet this was meek

And placid, and took nothing from the man

That was delightful. Oft in solitude

With him did I discourse about the end

Of civil government, and its wisest forms;

Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,

Custom and habit, novelty and change;

Of self-respect, and virtue in the few

For patrimonial honour set apart,

And ignorance in the labouring multitude.