Page:The Recluse, Wordsworth, 1888.djvu/37

Rh That extreme penury is here unknown,

And cold and hunger's abject wretchedness

Mortal to body and the heaven-born mind:

That they who want are not too great a weight

For those who can relieve; here may the heart

Breathe in the air of fellow-suffering

Dreadless, as in a kind of fresher breeze

Of her own native element, the hand

Be ready and unwearied without plea,

From tasks too frequent or beyond its power,

For languor or indifference or despair.

And as these lofty barriers break the force

Of winds,—this deep Vale, as it doth in part

Conceal us from the storm, so here abides

A power and a protection for the mind,

Dispensed indeed to other solitudes