Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/296

274 That Man is only weak through his mistrust

And want of hope where evidence divine

Proclaims to him that hope should be most sure;

Nor did the inexperience of my youth

Preclude conviction, that a spirit strong

In hope, and trained to noble aspirations,

A spirit throughly faithful to itself,

Is for Society's unreasoning herd

A domineering instinct, serves at once

For way and guide, a fluent receptacle

That gathers up each petty straggling rill

And vein of water, glad to be rolled on

In safe obedience; that a mind, whose rest

Is where it ought to be, in self-restraint,

In circumspection and simplicity,

Falls rarely in entire discomfiture

Below its aim, or meets with, from without,

A treachery that foils it or defeats;

And, lastly, if the means on human will,

Frail human will, dependent should betray

Him who too boldly trusted them, I felt

That 'mid the loud distractions of the world

A sovereign voice subsists within the soul,

Arbiter undisturbed of right and wrong,

Of life and death, in majesty severe