Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/277

BOOK IX.] From least beginnings; how, together locked

By new opinions, scattered tribes have made

One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven.

To aspirations then of our own minds

Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld

A living confirmation of the whole

Before us, in a people from the depth

Of shameful imbecility uprisen,

Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked

Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,

Self-sacrifice the firmest; generous love,

And continence of mind, and sense of right,

Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.

Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves,

Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known

In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream,

Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,

To ruminate, with interchange of talk,

On rational liberty, and hope in man,

Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil—

Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse—

If nature then be standing on the brink

Of some great trial, and we hear the voice

Of one devoted,—one whom circumstance