The Poetry Corner

Memorials Of A Tour In Italy, 1837 - XVI. - Continued

By William Wordsworth

The world forsaken, all its busy cares And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight, All trust abandoned in the healing might Of virtuous action; all that courage dares, Labour accomplishes, or patience bears Those helps rejected, they, whose minds perceive How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave For such a One beset with cloistral snares. Father of Mercy! rectify his view, If with his vows this object ill agree; Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue Imperious passion in a heart set free: That earthly love may to herself be true, Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.