Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/329

BOOK XI.] Yea, the whole body of society

Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend! the wish

That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes

Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words

Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth

What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth,

And the errors into which I fell, betrayed

By present objects, and by reasonings false

From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn

Out of a heart that had been turned aside

From Nature's way by outward accidents,

And which was thus confounded, more and more

Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared,

Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,

Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind,

Suspiciously, to establish in plain day

Her titles and her honours; now believing,

Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed

With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground

Of obligation, what the rule and whence

The sanction; till, demanding formal proof,

And seeking it in every thing, I lost

All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,

Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,

Yielded up moral questions in despair.