Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/281

BOOK IX.] Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross

High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign

(How welcome to the weary traveller's eyes!)

Of hospitality and peaceful rest.

And when the partner of those varied walks

Pointed upon occasion to the site

Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings,

To the imperial edifice of Blois,

Or to that rural castle, name now slipped

From my remembrance, where a lady lodged,

By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him

In chains of mutual passion, from the tower,

As a tradition of the country tells,

Practised to commune with her royal knight

By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse

'Twixt her high-seated residence and his

Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath;

Even here, though less than with the peaceful house

Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments

Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds,

Imagination, potent to inflame

At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,

Did also often mitigate the force

Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,

So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind;