Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/58

36 Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served

Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race

So ended, disappointment could be none,

Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:

We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,

Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength,

And the vain-glory of superior skill,

Were tempered; thus was gradually produced

A quiet independence of the heart;

And to my Friend who knows me I may add,

Fearless of blame, that hence for future days

Ensued a diffidence and modesty,

And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,

The self-sufficing power of Solitude.

Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare!

More than we wished we knew the blessing then

Of vigorous hunger—hence corporeal strength

Unsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude

A little weekly stipend, and we lived

Through three divisions of the quartered year

In penniless poverty. But now to school

From the half-yearly holidays returned,

We came with weightier purses, that sufficed

To furnish treats more costly than the Dame