Lay a few steps, and then along its banks,
585 And that our future course, all plain to sight, Was downwards, with the current of that Stream.
Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,
For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,
We questioned him again, and yet again;
590 But every word that from the Peasant's lips
Came in reply, translated by our feelings, Ended in this, that we had crossed the Alps.1 Imagination?here the Power so called
Through sad incompetence of human speech? 595 That awful0 Power rose from the Mind's abyss awe- inspiringLike an unfathered vapour2 that enwraps
At once some lonely Traveller. I was lost,
Halted without an effort to break through;
But to my conscious soul I now can say,
600 'I recognize thy glory'; in such strength
Of usurpation, when the light of sense
Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed
The invisible world, doth Greatness make abode,
There harbours, whether we be young or old;
605 Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
Is with infinitude, and only there;
9. The Simplon Pass through the Alps. time of writing the passage, as the 1805 text explic1. As Dorothy Wordsworth baldly put it later on, itly says: 'Imagination! lifting up itself / Before the 'The ambition of youth was disappointed at these eye and progress of my Song.' tidings.' The visionary experience that follows 2. Sudden vapor from no apparent source, (lines 593-617) occurred not in the Alps but at the
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36 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort, and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be.
6io Under such banners militant the Soul Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils, That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts That are their own perfection and reward, Strong in herself, and in beatitude3
615 That hides her like the mighty flood of Nile Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds To fertilize the whole Egyptian plain.
The melancholy slackening that ensued Upon those tidings by the Peasant given
620 Was soon dislodged; downwards we hurried fast And, with the half-shaped road, which we had missed, Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road Were fellow-Travellers in this gloomy Strait, And with them did we journey several hours
625 At a slow pace. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent at every turn Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
630 The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
635 The unfettered clouds, and region of the Heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light? Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse,
640 The types and symbols of Eternity,4 Of first and last, and midst, and without end.5
From Book Seventh Residence in London1
[THE BLIND BEGGAR. BARTHOLOMEW FAIR]
As the black storm upon the mountain top 620 Sets off the sunbeam in the Valley, so That huge fermenting Mass of human-kind
3. The ultimate blessedness or happiness. 4. The objects in this natural scene are like the written words ('characters') of the Apocalypse? i.e., of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. 'Types': signs foreshadowing the future. 5. Cf. Revelation 1.8: '1 am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.' The phrase is repeated in Revelation 21.6, after the fulfillment of the last things. In Paradise Lost 5.153? 65 Milton says that the things created declare their Creator, and calls on all to extol 'him first, him last, him midst, and without end.'
1. Wordsworth spent three and a half months in London in 1 791.
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 36 5
Serves as a solemn background or relief To single forms and objects, whence they draw, For feeling and contemplative regard,
