Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/393

BOOK XIV.] 'Mong other consolations, we may draw

Some pleasure from this offering of my love.

Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,

And all will be complete, thy race be run,

Thy monument of glory will be raised;

Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)

This age fall back to old idolatry,

Though men return to servitude as fast

As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame

By nations sink together, we shall still

Find solace—knowing what we have learnt to know,

Rich in true happiness if allowed to be

Faithful alike in forwarding a day

Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work

(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)

Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.

Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak

A lasting inspiration, sanctified

By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,

Others will love, and we will teach them how;

Instruct them how the mind of man becomes

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth

On which he dwells, above this frame of things