Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/46

24 Can I forget you, being as you were

So beautiful among the pleasant fields

In which ye stood? or can I here forget

The plain and seemly countenance with which

Ye dealt out your plain comforts? Yet had ye

Delights and exultations of your own.

Eager and never weary we pursued

Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire

At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate

In square divisions parcelled out and all

With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er,

We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head

In strife too humble to be named in verse:

Or round the naked table, snow-white deal,

Cherry or maple, sate in close array,

And to the combat, Loo or Whist, led on

A thick-ribbed army; not, as in the world,

Neglected and ungratefully thrown by

Even for the very service they had wrought,

But husbanded through many a long campaign.

Uncouth assemblage was it, where no few

Had changed their functions; some, plebeian cards

Which Fate, beyond the promise of their birth,

Had dignified, and called to represent

The persons of departed potentates.