(07) Book Seventh - Residence in London

Book Seventh Residence in London

FIVE years are vanished since I first poured out,
Saluted by that animating breeze
Which met me issuing from the city's walls,
A glad preamble to this verse. I sang
Aloud in dithyrambic fervour, deep 5
But short-lived uproar, like a torrent sent
Out of the bowels of a bursting cloud
Down Scawfell or Blencathara's rugged sides,
A waterspout from heaven. But 'twas not long
Ere the interrupted strain broke forth once more, 10
And flowed awhile in strength; then stopped for years—
Not heard again until a little space
Before last primrose-time. Belove`d friend,
The assurances then given unto myself,
Which did beguile me of some heavy thoughts 15
At thy departure to a foreign land,
Have failed; for slowly doth this work advance.
Through the whole summer I have been at rest,
Partly from voluntary holiday
And part through outward hindrance. But I heard 20
After the hour of sunset yester-even,
Sitting within doors betwixt light and dark,
A voice that stirred me. 'Twas a little band,
A quire of redbreasts gathered somewhere near
My threshold, minstrels from the distant woods 25
And dells, sent in by Winter to bespeak
For the old man a welcome, to announce
With preparation artful and benign—

Yea, the most gentle music of the year—
That their rough lord had left the surly north, 30
And hath begun his journey. A delight
At this unthought-of-greeting unawares
Smote me, a sweetness of the coming time,
And, listening, I half whispered, 'We will be,
Ye heartsome choristers, ye and I will be 35
Brethren, and in the hearing of bleak winds
Will chaunt together.' And, thereafter, walking
By later twilight on the hills I saw
A glow-worm, from beneath a dusky shade
Or canopy of the yet unwithered fern 40
Clear shining, like a hermit's taper seen
Through a thick forest. Silence touched me here
No less than sound had done before; the child
Of summer, lingering, shining by itself,
The voiceless worm on the unfrequented hills, 45
Seemed sent on the same errand with the quire
Of winter that had warbled at my door,
And the whole year seemed tenderness and love.
The last night's genial feeling overflowed
Upon this morning, and my favorite grove— 50
Now tossing its dark boughs in sun and wind—
Spreads through me a commotion like its own,
Something that fits me for the poet's task,
Which we will now resume with chearful hope,
Nor checked by aught of tamer argument 55
That lies before us, needful to be told.

Returned from that excursion, soon I bade
Farewell for ever to the private bowers
Of gowned students—quitted these, no more 60
To enter them, and pitched my vagrant tent,
A casual dweller and at large, among
The unfenced regions of society.
Yet undetermined to what plan of life
I should adhere, and seeming thence to have 65
A little space of intermediate time

Loose and at full command, to London first
I turned, if not in calmness, nevertheless
In no disturbance of excessive hope—
At ease from all ambition personal, 70
Frugal as there was need, and though self-willed,
Yet temperate and reserved, and wholly free
From dangerous passions. 'Twas at least two years
Before this season when I first beheld
That mighty place, a transient visitant; 75
And now it pleased me my abode to fix
Single in the wide waste. To have a house,
It was enough—what matter for a home?—
That owned me, living chearfully abroad
With fancy on the stir from day to day, 80
And all my young affections out of doors.

There was a time when whatso'er is feigned
Of airy palaces and gardens built
By genii of romance, or hath in grave
Authentic history been set forth of Rome, 85
Alcairo, Babylon, or Persepolis,
Or given upon report by pilgrim friars
Of golden cities ten months' journey deep
Among Tartarean wilds, fell short, far short,
Of that which I in simpleness believed 90
And thought of London—held me by a chain
Less strong of wonder and obscure delight.
I know not that herein I shot beyond
The common mark of childhood, but I well
Remember that among our flock of boys 95
Was one, a cripple from the birth, whom chance
Summoned from school to London—fortunate
And envied traveller—and when he returned,
After short absence, and I first set eyes
Upon his person, verily, though strange 100
The thing may seem, I was not wholly free
From disappointment to behold the same
Appearance, the same body, not to find

Some change, some beams of glory brought away
From that new region, Much I questioned him, 105
And every word he uttered, on my ears
Fell flatter than a cage`d parrot's note,
That answers unexpectedly awry,
And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things
My fancy had shaped forth of sights and shows, 110
Processions, equipages, lords and dukes,
The King and the King's palace, and not last
Or least, heaven bless him! the renowned Lord Mayor—
Dreams hardly less intense than those which wrought
A change of purpose in young Whittington 115
When he in fiendlessness, a drooping boy,
Sate on a stone and heard the bells speak out
Articulate music. Above all, one thought
Baffled my understanding, how men lived
Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still 120
Strangers, and knowing not each other's names.

Oh wondrous power of words, how sweet they are
According to the meaning which they bring—
Vauxhall and Ranelagh, I then had heard
Of your green groves and wilderness of lamps, 125
Your gorgeous ladies, fairy cataracts,
And pageant fireworks. Nor must we forget
Those other wonders, different in kind
Though scarcely less illustrious in degree,
The river proudly bridged, the giddy top 130
And Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's, the tombs
Of Westminster, the Giants of Guildhall,
Bedlam and the two figures at its gates,
Streets without end and churches numberless,
Statues with flowery gardens in vast squares, 135
The Monument, and Armoury of the Tower.
These fond imaginations, of themselves,
Had long before given way in season due,
Leaving a throng of others in their stead;
And now I looked upon the real scene, 140

Familiarly perused it day by day,
With keen and lively pleasure even there
Where disappointment was the strongest, pleased
Through courteous self-submission, as a tax
Paid to the object by prescriptive right, 145
A thing that ought to be. Shall I give way,
Copying the impression of the memory—
Though things remembered idly do half seem
The work of fancy—shall I, as the mood
Inclines me, here describe for pastime's sake, 150
Some portion of that motley imagery,
A vivid pleasure of my youth, and now,
Among the lonely places that I love,
A frequent daydream for my riper mind?
And first, the look and aspect of the place— 155
The broad highway appearance, as it strikes
On strangers of all ages, the quick dance
Of colours, lights and forms, the Babel din,
The endless stream of men and moving things,
From hour to hour the illimitable walk 160
Still among streets, with clouds and sky above,
The wealth, the bustle and the eagerness,
The glittering chariots with their pampered steeds,
Stalls, barrows, porters, midway in the street
The scavenger that begs with hat in hand, 165
The labouring hackney-coaches, the rash speed
Of coaches travelling far, whirled on with horn
Loud blowing, and the sturdy drayman's team
Ascending from some alley of the Thames
And striking right across the crowded Strand 170
Till the fore-horse veer round with punctual skill;
Here, there, and everywhere, a weary throng,
That comers and the goers face to face—
Face after face—the string of dazzling wares,
Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names, 175
And all the tradesman's honours overhead:
Here, fronts of houses, like a title-page
With letters huge inscribed from top to toe;

Stationed above the door like guardian saints,
There, allegoric shapes, female or male, 180
Or physiognomies of real men,
Land-warriors, kings, or admirals of the sea,
Boyle, Shakespear, Newton, or the attractive head
Of some quack-doctor, famous in his day.

Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, 185
Escaped as from an enemy, we turn
Abruptly into some sequestered nook,
Still as a sheltered place when winds blow loud.
At leisure thence, through tracts of thin resort,
And sights and sounds that come at intervals, 190
We take our way—a raree-show is here
With children gathered round, another street
Presents a company of dancing dogs,
Or dromedary with an antic pair
Of monkies on his back, a minstrel-band 195
Of Savoyards, single and alone,
An English ballad-singer. Private courts,
Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes
Thrilled by some female vendor's scream—belike
The very shrillest of all London cries— 200
May then entangle us awhile,
Conducted through those labyrinths unawares
To privileged regions and inviolate,
Where from their aery lodges studious lawyers
Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green. 205

Thence back into the throng, until we reach—
Following the tide that slackens by degrees—
Some half-frequented scene where wider streets
Bring straggling breezes of suburban air.
Here files of ballads dangle from dead walls, 210
Advertisements of giant size, from high
Press forward in all colours on the sight—
These, bold in conscious merit—lower down,
That, fronted with a most imposing word,

Is peradventure one in masquerade. 215
As on the broadening causeway we advance,
Behold a face turned up towards us, strong
In lineaments, and red with over-toil:
'Tis one perhaps already met elsewhere,
A travelling cripple, by the trunk cut short, 220
And stumping with his arms. In sailor's garb
Another lies at length beside a range
Of written characters, with chalk inscribed
Upon the smooth flat stones. The nurse is here,
The bachelor that loves to sun himself, 225
The military idler, and the dame
That field-ward takes her walk in decency.

Now homeward through the thickening hubbub, where
See—among less distinguishable shapes—
The Italian, with his frame of images 230
Upon his head; with basket at his waist,
The Jew; the stately and slow-moving Turk,
With freight of slippers piled beneath his arm.
Briefly, we find (if tired of random sights,
And haply to that search our thoughts should turn) 235
Among the crowd, conspicuous less or more
As we proceed, all specimens of man
Through all the colours which the sun bestows,
And every character of form and face:
The Swede, the Russian; from the genial south, 240
The Frenchman and the Spaniard; from remote
America, the hunter Indian;
Moors, Malays, Lascars, the Tartar and Chinese,
And Negro ladies in white muslin gowns.

At leisure let us view from day to day, 245
As they present themselves, the spectacles
Within doors: troops of wild beasts, birds and beasts
Of every nature from all climes convened,
And, next to these, those mimic sights that ape
The absolute presence of reality, 250

Expressing as in mirror sea and land,
And what earth is, and what she hath to shew—
I do not here allude to subtlest craft,
By means refined attaining purest ends,
But imitations fondly made in plain 255
Confession of man's weakness and his loves.
Whether the painter—fashioning a work
To Nature's circumambient scenery,
And with his greedy pencil taking in
A whole horizon on all sides—with power 260
Like that of angels or commissioned spirits,
Plant us upon some lofty pinnacle
Or in a ship on waters, with a world
Of life and lifelike mockery to east,
To west, beneath, behind us, and before, 265
Or more mechanic artist represent
By scale exact, in model, wood or clay,
From shading colours also borrowing help,
Some miniature of famous spots and things,
Domestic, or the boast of foreign realms: 270
The Firth of Forth, and Edinburgh, throned
On crags, fit empress of that mountain land;
St Peter's Church; or, more aspiring aim,
In microscopic vision, Rome itself;
Or else, perhaps, some rural haunt, the Falls 275
Of Tivoli, and dim Frescati's bowers,
And high upon the steep that mouldering fane,
The Temple of the Sibyl—every tree
Through all the landscape, tuft, stone, scratch minute,
And every cottage, lurking in the rocks— 280
All that the traveller sees when he is there.

And to these exhibitions mute and still
Others of wider scope, where living men,
Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes, 285
Together joined their multifarious aid
To heighten the allurement. Need I fear
To mention by its name, as in degree

Lowest of these, and humblest in attempt—
Yet richly graced with honours of its own— 290
Half-rural Sadler's Wells? Though at that time
Intolerant, as is the way of youth
Unless itself be pleased, I more than once
Here took my seat, and, maugre frequent fits
Of irksomeness, with ample recompense 295
Saw singes, rope-dancers, giants and dwarfs,
Clowns, conjurors, posture-masters, harlequins,
Amid the uproar of the rabblement,
Perform their feats. Nor was it mean delight
To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds, 300
To note the laws and progress of belief—
Though obstinate on this way, yet on that
How willingly we travel, and how far!—
To have, for instance, brought upon the scene
The champion, Jack the Giant-killer; lo, 305
He dons his coat of darkness, on the stage
Walks, and atchieves his wonders, from the eye
Of living mortal safe as is the moon
'Hid in her vacant interlunar cave'.
Delusion bold (and faith must needs be coy) 310
How is it wrought?—his garb is black, the word
INVISIBLE flames forth upon his chest.

Nor was it unamusing here to view
Those samples, as of the ancient comedy
And Thespian times, dramas of living men 315
And recent things yet warm with life: a sea-fight,
Shipwreck, or some domestic incident
The fame of which is scattered through the land,
Such as this daring brotherhood of late
Set forth—too holy theme for such a place, 320
And doubtless treated with irreverence,
Albeit with their very best of skill—
I mean, O distant friend, a story drawn
From our own ground, the Maid of Buttermere,
And how the spoiler came, 'a bold bad man' 325

To God unfaithful, children, wife, and home,
And wooed the artless daughter of the hills,
And wedded her, in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage bonds. O friend, I speak
With tender recollection of that time 330
When first we saw the maiden, then a name
By us unheard of—in her cottage-inn
Were welcomed, and attended on by her,
Both stricken with one feeling of delight,
An admiration of her modest mien 335
And carriage, marked by unexampled grace.
Not unfamiliarly we since that time
Have seen her, her discretion have observed,
Her just opinions, female modesty,
Her patience, and retiredness of mind 340
Unspoiled by commendation and excess
Of public notice. This memorial verse
Comes from the poet's heart, and is her due;
For we were nursed—as almost might be said—
On the same mountains, children at one time, 345
Must haply often on the self-same day
Have from our several dwellings gone abroad
To gather daffodils on Coker's stream.

These last words uttered, to my argument
I was returning, when—with sundry forms 350
Mingled, that in the way which I must tread
Before me stand—thy image rose again,
Mary of Buttermere! She lives in peace
Upon the spot where she as born and reared;
Without contamination does she live 355
In quietness, without anxiety.
Beside the mountain chapel sleeps in earth
Her new-born infant, fearless as a lamb
That thither comes from some unsheltered place
To rest beneath the little rock-like pile 360
When storms are blowing. Happy are they both,
Mother and child! These feelings, in themselves

Trite, do yet scarcely seem so when I think
Of those ingenuous moments of our youth
Ere yet by use we have learnt to slight the crimes
And sorrows of the world. Those days are now
My theme, and, 'mid the numerous scenes which they
Have left behind them, foremost I am crossed
Here by remembrance of two figures: one
A rosy babe, who for a twelvemonth's space
Perhaps had been of age to deal about
Articulate prattle, child as beautiful
As ever sate upon a mother's knee;
The other was the parent of that babe—
But on the mother's cheek the tints were false, 375
A painted bloom. 'Twas at a theatre
That I beheld this pair; the boy had been
The pride and pleasure of all lookers-on
In whatsoever place, but seemed in this
A sort of alien scattered from the clouds. 380
Of lusty vigour, more than infantine,
He was in limbs, in face a cottage rose
Just three part blown—a cottage-child, but ne'er
Saw I by cottage or elsewhere a babe
By Nature's gifts so honored. Upon a board, 385
Whence an attendant of the theatre
Served out refreshments, had this child been placed,
And there he sate environed with a ring
Of chance spectators, chiefly dissolute men
And shameless women—treated and caressed— 390
Ate, drank, and with the fruit and glasses played,
While oaths, indecent speech, and ribaldry
Were rife about him as are songs of birds
In springtime after showers. The mother, too,
Was present, but of her I know no more 395
Than hath been said, and scarcely at this time
Do I remember her; but I behold
The lovely boy as I beheld him then,
Among the wretched and the falsely gay,
Like one of those who walked with hair unsinged 400

Amid the fiery furnace. He hath since
Appeared to me ofttimes as if embalmed
By Nature—through some special privilege
Stopped at the growth he had—destined to live,
To be, to have been, come, and go, a child 405
And nothing more, no partner in the years
That bear us forward to distress and guilt,
Pain and abasement; beauty in such excess
Adorned him in that miserable place.
So have I thought of him a thousand times— 410
And seldom otherwise—but he perhaps,
Mary, may now have lived till he could look
With envy on thy nameless babe that sleeps
Beside the mountain chapel undisturbed.

It was but little more than three short years 415
Before the season which I speak of now
When first, a traveller from our pastoral hills,
Southward two hundred miles I had advanced,
And for the first time in my life did hear
The voice of woman utter blasphemy— 420
Saw woman as she is to open shame
Abandoned, and the pride of public vice.
Full surely from the bottom of my heart
I shuddered; but the pain was almost lost,
Absorbed and buried in the immensity 425
Of the effect: a barrier seemed at once
Thrown in, that from humanity divorced
The human form, splitting the race of man
In twain, yet leaving the same outward shape.
Distress of mind ensued upon this sight, 430
And ardent meditation—afterwards
A milder sadness on such spectacles
Attended: thought, commiseration, grief,
For the individual and the overthrow
Of her soul's beauty—farther at that time 435
Than this I was but seldom led; in truth
The sorrow of the passion stopped me here.

I quit this painful theme, enough is said
To shew what thoughts must often have been mine
At theatres, which then were my delight— 440
A yearning made more strong by obstacles
Which slender funds imposed. Life then was new,
The senses easily pleased; the lustres, lights,
The carving and the gilding, paint and glare,
And all the mean upholstery of the place, 445
Wanted not animation in my sight,
Far less the living figures on the stage,
Solemn or gay—whether some beauteous dame
Advanced in radiance through a deep recess
Of thick-entangled forest, like the moon 450
Opening the clouds; or sovereign king, announced
With flourishing trumpets, came in full-blown state
Of the world's greatness, winding round with train
Of courtiers, banners, and a length of guards;
Or captive led in abject weeds, and jingling 455
His slender manacles; or romping girl
Bounced, leapt, and pawed the air; or mumbling sire,
A scarecrow pattern of old age, patched up
Of all the tatters of infirmity,
All loosely put together, hobbled in 460
Stumping upon a cane, with which he smites
From time to time the solid boards and makes them
Prat somewhat loudly of the whereabout
Of one so overloaded with his years.
But what of this?—the laugh, the grin, grimace, 465
And all the antics and buffoonery,
The least of them not lost, were all received
With charitable pleasure. Through the night,
Between the show, and many-headed mass
Of the spectators, and each little nook 470
That had its fray or brawl, how eagerly
And with what flashes, as it were, the mind
Turned this way, that way—sportive and alert
And watchful, as a kitten when at play,
While winds are blowing round her, among grass 475

And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet—
Romantic almost, looked at through a space,
How small, of intervening years! For then,
Though surely no mean progress had been made
In meditations holy and sublime, 480
Yet something of a girlish childlike gloss
Of novelty survived for scenes like these—
Pleasure that had been handed down from times
When at a country playhouse, having caught
In summer through the fractured wall a glimpse 485
Of daylight, at the thought of where I was
I gladdened more than if I had beheld
Before me some bright cavern of romance,
Or than we do when on our beds we lie
At night, in warmth, when rains are beating hard. 490

The matter which detains me now will seem
To many neither dignified enough
Nor arduous, and is doubtless in itself
Humble and low—yet not to be despised
By those who have observed the curious props 495
By which the perishable hours of life
Rest on each other, and the world of thought
Exists and is sustained. More lofty themes,
Such as at least do wear a prouder face,
Might here be spoken of; but when I think 500
Of these I feel the imaginative power
Languish within me. Even then it slept,
When, wrought upon by tragic sufferings,
The heart was full—amid my sobs and tears
It slept, even in the season of my youth. 505
For though I was most passionately moved,
And yielded to the changes of the scene
With most obsequious feeling, yet all this
Passed not beyond the suburbs of the mind.
If aught there were of real grandeur here 510
'Twas only then when gross realities,
The incarnation of the spirits that moved

Amid the poet's beauteous world—called forth
With that distinctness which a contrast gives,
Or opposition—made me recognise 515
As by a glimpse, the things which I had shaped
And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcely seen,
Had felt, and thought of in my solitude.

Pass we from entertainments that are such
Professedly, to others titled higher, 520
Yet, in the estimate of youth at least,
More near akin to these than names imply—
I mean the brawls of lawyers in their courts
Before the ermined judge, or that great stage
Where senators, tongue-favored men, perform, 525
Admired and envied. Oh, the beating heart,
When one among the prime of these rose up,
One of whose name from childhood we had heard
Familiarly, a household term, like those—
The Bedfords, Glocesters, Salisburys of old— 530
Which the fifth Harry talks of. Silence, hush,
This is no trifler, no short-flighted wit,
No stammerer of a minute, painfully
Delivered. No, the orator hath yoked
The hours, like young Aurora, to his car— 535
O presence of delight, can patience e'er
Grow weary of attending on a track
That kindles with such glory? Marvellous,
The enchantment spreads and rises—all are rapt
Astonished—like a hero in romance 540
He winds away his never-ending horn:
Words follow words, sense seems to follow sense—
What memory and what logic!—till the strain
Transcendent, superhuman as it is,
Grows tedious even in a young man's ear. 545

These are grave follies; other public shows
The capital city teems with of a kind
More light—and where but in the holy church?

There have I seen a comely bachelor,
fresh from a toilette of two hours, ascend 550
The pulpit, with seraphic glance look up,
and in a tone elaborately low
Beginning, lead his voice through many a maze
A minuet course, and, winding up his mouth
From time to time into an orifice 555
Most delicate, a lurking eyelet, small
And only not invisible, again
Open it out, diffusing thence a smile
Of rapt irradiation exquisite.
Meanwhile the Evangelists, Isaiah, Job, 560
Moses, and he who penned the other day
The Death of Abel, Shakespear, Doctor Young,
And Ossian—doubt not, 'tis the naked truth—
Summoned from streamy Morven, each and all
Must in their turn lend ornament and flowers 565
To entwine the crook of eloquence with which
This pretty shepherd, pride of all the plains,
Leads up and down his captivated flock.

I glance but at a few conspicuous marks,
Leaving ten thousand others that do each— 570
In hall or court, conventicle, or shop,
In public room or private, park or street—
With fondness reared on his own pedestal,
Look out for admiration. Folly, vice,
Extravagance in gesture, mien and dress, 575
And all the strife of singularity—
Lies to the ear, and lies to every sense—
Of these and of the living shapes they wear
There is no end. Such candidates for regard,
Although well pleased to be where they were found, 580
I did not hunt after or greatly prize,
Nor made unto myself a secret boast
Of reading them with quick and curious eye,
But as a common produce—things that are
Today, tomorrow will be—took of them 585

Such willing note as, on some errand bound
Of pleasure or of love, some traveller might,
Among a thousand other images,
Of sea-shells that bestud the sandy beach,
Or daisies swarming through the fields in June. 590

But foolishness, and madness in parade,
Though most at home in this their dear domain,
Are scattered everywhere, no rarities,
Even to the rudest novice of the schools.
O friend, one feeling was there which belonged 595
To this great city by exclusive right:
How often in the overflowing streets
Have I gone forwards with the crowd, and said
Unto myself, 'The face of every one
That passes by me is a mystery.' 600
Thus have I looked, nor ceased to look, oppressed
By thoughts of what, and whither, when and how,
Until the shapes before my eyes became
A second-sight procession, such as glides
Over still montains, or appears in dreams, 605
And all the ballast of familiar life—
The present, and the past, hope, fear, all stays,
All laws of acting, thinking, speaking man—
Went from me, neither knowing me, nor known.
And once, far travelled in such mood, beyond 610
The reach of common indications, lost
Amid the moving pageant, 'twas my chance
Abruptly to be smitten with the view
Of a blind beggar, who, with upright face,
Stood propped against a wall, upon his chest 615
Wearing a written paper, to explain
The story of the man, and who he was.
My mind did at this spectacle turn round
As with the might of waters, and it seemed
To me that in this label was a type 620
Or emblem of the utmost that we know
Both of ourselves and of the universe,

And on the shape of this unmoving man,
His fixe`d face and sightless eyes, I looked,
As if admonished from another world. 625

Though reared upon the base of outward things,
These chiefly are such structures as the mind
Builds for itself. Scenes different there are—
Full-formed—which take, with small internal help,
Possession of the faculties: the peace 630
Of night, for instance, the solemnity
Of Nature's intermediate hours of rest
When the great tide of human life stands still,
The business of the day to come unborn,
Of that gone by locked up as in the grave; 635
The calmness, beauty, of the spectacle,
Sky, stillness, moonshine, empty streets, and sounds
Unfrequent as in desarts; at late hours
Of winter evenings when unwholesome rains
Are falling hard, with people yet astir, 640
The feeble salutation from the voice
Of some unhappy woman now and then
Heard as we pass, when no one looks about,
Nothing is listened to. But these I fear
Are falsely catalogued things that are, are not, 645
Even as we give them welcome, or assist—
Are prompt, or are remiss. What say you then
To times when half the city shall break out
Full of one passion—vengeance, rage, or fear—
To executions, to a street on fire, 650
Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From those sights
Take one, an annual festival, the fair
Holden where martyrs suffered in past time,
And named of St. Bartholomew, there see
A work that's finished to our hands, that lays, 655
If any spectacle on earth can do,
The whole creative powers of man asleep.
For once the Muse's help will we implore,
And she shall lodge us—wafted on her wings

Above the press and danger of the crowd— 660
Upon some showman's platform. What a hell
For eyes and ears, what anarchy and din
Barbarian and infernal—'tis a dream
Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound.
Below, the open space, through every nook 665
Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive
With heads; the midway region and above
Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls,
Dumb proclamations of the prodigies;
And chattering monkeys dangling from their poles, 670
And children whirling in their roundabouts;
With those that stretch the neck, and strain the eyes,
And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd
Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
Grimacing, writhing, screaming; him who grinds 675
The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,
Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum,
And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks,
The silver-collared negro with his timbrel,
Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, 680
Blue-breeched, pink-vested, and with towering plumes.
All moveables of wonder from all parts
Are here, albinos, painted Indians, dwarfs,
The horse of knowledge, and the learned pig,
The stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, 685
Giants, ventriloquists, the invisible girl,
The bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
The waxwork, clockwork, all the marvellous
craft Of modern Merlins, wild beasts, puppet-shows,
All out-o'-th'-way, far-fetched, perverted things, 690
All freaks of Nature, all Promethean thoughts
Of man—his dulness, madness, and other feats,
All jumbled up together to make up
This parliament of monsters. Tents and booths
Meanwhile—as if the whole were one vast mill— 695
Are vomiting, receiving, on all sides,
Men, women, three-years' children, babes in arms.

O, blank confusion, and a type not false
Of what the mighty city is itself
To all, except a straggler here and there— 700
To the whole swarm of its inhabitants—
An undistinguishable world to men,
The slaves unrespited of low pursuits,
Living amid the same perpetual flow
Of trivial objects, melted and reduced 705
To one identity by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end—
Oppression under which even highest minds
Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.
But though the picture weary out the eye, 710
By nature an unmanageable sight,
It is not wholly so to him who looks
In steadiness, who hath among least things
An under-sense of greatest, sees the parts
As parts, but with a feeling of the whole. 715
This, of all acquisitions first, awaits
On sundry and most widely different modes
Of education—nor with least delight
On that through which I passed. Attention comes,
And comprehensiveness and memory, 720
From early converse with the works of God
Among all regions, chiefly where appear
Most obviously simplicity and power.
By influence habitual to the mind
The mountain's outline and its steady form 725
Gives a pure grandeur, and its presence shapes
The measure and the prospect of the soul
To majesty: such virtue have the forms
Perennial of the ancient hills—nor less
The changeful language of their countenances 730
Gives movement of the thoughts, and multitude,
With order and relation. This (if still,
As hitherto, with freedom I may speak,
And the same perfect openness of mind,
Not violating any just restraint, 735

As I would hope, of real modesty),
This did I feel in that vast receptacle.
The spirit of Nature was upon me here,
The soul of beauty and enduring life
Was present as a habit, and diffused— 740
Through meagre lines and colours, and the press
Of self-destroying, transitory things—
Composure and ennobling harmony.