Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/333

BOOK XI.] The city of Timoleon! Righteous Heaven!

How are the mighty prostrated! They first,

They first of all that breathe should have awaked

When the great voice was heard from out the tombs

Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief

For ill-requited France, by many deemed

A trifler only in her proudest day;

Have been distressed to think of what she once

Promised, now is; a far more sober cause

Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land,

To the reanimating influence lost

Of memory, to virtue lost and hope,

Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn.

But indignation works where hope is not,

And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is

One great society alone on earth:

The noble Living and the noble Dead.

Thine be such converse strong and sanative,

A ladder for thy spirit to reascend

To health and joy and pure contentedness;

To me the grief confined, that thou art gone

From this last spot of earth, where Freedom now

Stands single in her only sanctuary;