Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/326

304 For one of conquest, losing sight of all

Which they had struggled for: now mounted up,

Openly in the eye of earth and heaven,

The scale of liberty. I read her doom,

With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,

But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame

Of a false prophet. While resentment rose

Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds

Of mortified presumption, I adhered

More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove

Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat

Of contest, did opinions every day

Grow into consequence, till round my mind

They clung, as if they were its life, nay more,

The very being of the immortal soul.

This was the time, when, all things tending fast

To depravation, speculative schemes—

That promised to abstract the hopes of Man

Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth

For ever in a purer element—

Found ready welcome. Tempting region that

For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,

Where passions had the privilege to work,

And never hear the sound of their own names.