Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/283

BOOK IX.] All institutes for ever blotted out

That legalised exclusion, empty pomp

Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,

Whether by edict of the one or few;

And finally, as sum and crown of all,

Should see the people having a strong hand

In framing their own laws; whence better days

To all mankind. But, these things set apart,

Was not this single confidence enough

To animate the mind that ever turned

A thought to human welfare? That henceforth

Captivity by mandate without law

Should cease; and open accusation lead

To sentence in the hearing of the world,

And open punishment, if not the air

Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man

Dread nothing. From this height I shall not stoop

To humbler matter that detained us oft

In thought or conversation, public acts,

And public persons, and emotions wrought

Within the breast, as ever-varying winds

Of record or report swept over us;

But I might here, instead, repeat a tale,(12)

Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events,

That prove to what low depth had struck the roots,