Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/318

296 Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end

Great, universal, irresistible.

This intuition led me to confound

One victory with another, higher far,—

Triumphs of unambitious peace at home,

And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still

Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought

That what was in degree the same was likewise

The same in quality,—that, as the worse

Of the two spirits then at strife remained

Untired, the better, surely, would preserve

The heart that first had roused him. Youth maintains,

In all conditions of society,

Communion more direct and intimate

With Nature,—hence, ofttimes, with reason too—

Than age or manhood, even. To Nature, then,

Power had reverted: habit, custom, law,

Had left an interregnum's open space

For her to move about in, uncontrolled.

Hence could I see how Babel-like their task,

Who, by the recent deluge stupified,

With their whole souls went culling from the day

Its petty promises, to build a tower

For their own safety; laughed with my compeers

At gravest heads, by enmity to France