Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/285

BOOK IX.] Her mandates, severing whom true love had joined,

Harassing both; until he sank and pressed

The couch his fate had made for him; supine,

Save when the stings of viperous remorse,

Trying their strength, enforced him to start up,

Aghast and prayerless. Into a deep wood

He fled, to shun the haunts of human kind;

There dwelt, weakened in spirit more and more;

Nor could the voice of Freedom, which through France

Full speedily resounded, public hope,

Or personal memory of his own worst wrongs,

Rouse him; but, hidden in those gloomy shades,

His days he wasted,—an imbecile mind.