Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/324

302 Gives rights to error; and aware, no less,

That throwing off oppression must be work

As well of License as of Liberty;

And above all—for this was more than all—

Not caring if the wind did now and then

Blow keen upon an eminence that gave

Prospect so large into futurity;

In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,

Diffusing only those affections wider

That from the cradle had grown up with me,

And losing, in no other way than light

Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.

In the main outline, such it might be said

Was my condition, till with open war

Britain opposed the liberties of France.

This threw me first out of the pale of love;

Soured and corrupted, upwards to the source,

My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,

A swallowing up of lesser things in great,

But change of them into their contraries;

And thus a way was opened for mistakes

And false conclusions, in degree as gross,

In kind more dangerous. What had been a pride,

Was now a shame; my likings and my loves