Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/73

BOOK II.] With my own modest pleasures, and have lived

With God and Nature communing, removed

From little enmities and low desires,

The gift is yours; if in these times of fear,

This melancholy waste of hopes overthrown,

If, 'mid indifference and apathy,

And wicked exultation when good men

On every side fall off, we know not how,

To selfishness, disguised in gentle names

Of peace and quiet and domestic love,

Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers

On visionary minds; if, in this time

Of dereliction and dismay, I yet

Despair not of our nature, but retain

A more than Roman confidence, a faith

That fails not, in all sorrow my support,

The blessing of my life; the gift is yours,

Ye winds and sounding cataracts! 'tis yours,

Ye mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed

My lofty speculations; and in thee,

For this uneasy heart of ours, I find

A never-failing principle of joy

And purest passion.

Thou, my Friend! wert reared

In the great city, 'mid far other scenes;