Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/97

BOOK III.] Saluted the chance comer on the road,

Crying, "An obolus, a penny give

To a poor scholar!"—when illustrious men,

Lovers of truth, by penury constrained,

Bucer, Erasmus, or Melancthon, read

Before the doors or windows of their cells

By moonshine through mere lack of taper light.

But peace to vain regrets! We see but darkly

Even when we look behind us, and best things

Are not so pure by nature that they needs

Must keep to all, as fondly all believe,

Their highest promise. If the mariner,

When at reluctant distance he hath passed

Some tempting island, could but know the ills

That must have fallen upon him had he brought

His bark to land upon the wished-for shore,

Good cause would oft be his to thank the surf

Whose white belt scared him thence, or wind that blew

Inexorably adverse: for myself

I grieve not; happy is the gownèd youth,

Who only misses what I missed, who falls

No lower than I fell.

I did not love,

Judging not ill perhaps, the timid course