Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves, 390
  Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known
  In the green dales beside our Rotha’s stream,
  Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,
  To ruminate, with interchange of talk,
  On rational liberty, and hope in man, 395
  Justice and peace.  But far more sweet such toil—­
  Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse—­
  If nature then be standing on the brink
  Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
  Of one devoted, one whom circumstance 400
  Hath called upon to embody his deep sense
  In action, give it outwardly a shape,
  And that of benediction, to the world. 
  Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth,—­
  A hope it is, and a desire; a creed 405
  Of zeal, by an authority Divine
  Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death. 
  Such conversation, under Attic shades,
  Did Dion hold with Plato; [O] ripened thus
  For a Deliverer’s glorious task,—­and such 410
  He, on that ministry already bound,
  Held with Eudemus and Timonides, [P]
  Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
  When those two vessels with their daring freight,
  For the Sicilian Tyrant’s overthrow, 415
  Sailed from Zacynthus,—­philosophic war,
  Led by Philosophers. [Q] With harder fate,
  Though like ambition, such was he, O Friend! 
  Of whom I speak.  So Beaupuis (let the name
  Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity) 420
  Fashioned his life; and many a long discourse,
  With like persuasion honoured, we maintained: 
  He, on his part, accoutred for the worst. 
  He perished fighting, in supreme command,
  Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, 425
  For liberty, against deluded men,
  His fellow country-men; and yet most blessed
  In this, that he the fate of later times
  Lived not to see, nor what we now behold,
  Who have as ardent hearts as he had then. 430

  Along that very Loire, with festal mirth
  Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet
  Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk;
  Or in wide forests of continuous shade,
  Lofty and over-arched, with open space 435
  Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile—­
  A solemn region.  Oft amid those haunts,
  From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,
  And let remembrance steal to other times,
  When, o’er those interwoven roots, moss-clad, 440
  And smooth as marble or a waveless sea,
  Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace
  In sylvan meditation undisturbed;
  As on the pavement of a Gothic church
  Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired,