Of azure without cloud, and at my feet Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved All over this still Ocean;3 and beyond,
45 Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched, In Headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, Into the main Atlantic, that appeared To dwindle, and give up his majesty, Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.
50 Not so the ethereal Vault; encroachment none Was there, nor loss;4 only the inferior stars Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon; Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed
55 Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay All meek and silent, save that through a rift Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, A fixed, abysmal, gloomy breathing-place, Mounted the roar of waters?torrents?streams
60 Innumerable, roaring with one voice! Heard over earth and sea, and in that hour, For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.
When into air had partially dissolved That Vision, given to Spirits of the night,
65 And three chance human Wanderers, in calm thought Reflected, it appeared to me the type Of a majestic Intellect, its acts And its possessions, what it has and craves, What in itself it is, and would become.
70 There I beheld the emblem of a Mind That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light In one continuous stream; a mind sustained
75 By recognitions of transcendent power In sense, conducting to ideal form; In soul, of more than mortal privilege.5 One function, above all, of such a mind Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,
so 'Mid circumstances awful0 and sublime, awe-inspiring That mutual domination which she loves To exert upon the face of outward things, So moulded, joined, abstracted; so endowed With interchangeable supremacy, 85 That Men least sensitive see, hear, perceive, And cannot chuse but feel. The power which all Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus To bodily sense exhibits, is the express
3. In Milton's description of God's creation of the land from the waters, 'the mountains huge appear / Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave / Into the clouds' (Paradise Lost 7.285-87). 4. The mist projected in various shapes over the Irish Sea, but did not 'encroach' on the heavens overhead.
5. The sense of lines 74?77 seems to be that the mind of someone who is gifted beyond the ordinary lot of mortals recognizes its power to transcend the senses by converting sensory objects into ideal forms.
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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 38 7
Resemblance of that glorious faculty
90 That higher minds bear with them as their own.6 This is the very spirit in which they deal With the whole compass of the universe: They, from their native selves, can send abroad Kindred mutations; for themselves create
95 A like existence; and whene'er it dawns Created for them, catch it;?or are caught Ry its inevitable mastery, Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound Of harmony from heaven's remotest spheres.
ioo Them the enduring and the transient both Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things From least suggestions; ever on the watch, Willing to work and to be wrought upon, They need not extraordinary calls
105 To rouse them, in a world of life they live; Ry sensible0 impressions not enthralled, sensory But, by their quickening impulse, made more prompt To hold fit converse with the spiritual world, And with the generations of mankind no Spread over time, past, present, and to come, Age after age, till Time shall be no more. Such minds are truly from the Deity, For they are powers; and hence the highest bliss That flesh can know is theirs,?the consciousness 115 Of whom they are, habitually infused Through every image, and through every thought, And all affections0 by communion raised emotions From earth to heaven, from human to divine. Hence endless occupation for the Soul, 120 Whether discursive or intuitive;7 Hence chearfulness for acts of daily life, Emotions which best foresight need not fear, Most worthy then of trust when most intense: Hence, amid ills that vex, and wrongs that crush 125 Our hearts, if here the words of holy Writ May with fit reverence be applied, that peace Which passeth understanding,8?that repose In moral judgements which from this pure source Must come, or will by Man be sought in vain.
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[CONCLUSION: 'THE MIND OF MAN']
And now, O Friend!9 this History is brought To its appointed close: the discipline
6. The 'glorious faculty' is the imagination, which quality according to Raphael, undertakes to reach transfigures and re-creates what is given to it by truths through a logical sequence of premises, the senses, much as, in Wordsworth's account of observations, and conclusions; 'intuitive' reason, this night on Snowdon, the moonlit mist transfig-mainly angelic, comprehends truths immediately. ures the familiar landscape. 8. Philippians 4.7: 'The peace of God, which pas7. An echo of Archangel Raphael's account to seth all understanding.' This passage of Christian Adam of the soul's powers of reason {Paradise Lost piety was added by Wordsworth in a late revision. 5.488?89). Discursive reason, mainly a human 9. Goleridge.
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38 8 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
And consummation0 of a Poet's mind completion
305 In every thing that stood most prominent Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached The time (our guiding object from the first) When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such
310 My knowledge, as to make me capable Of building up a Work that shall endure.
* * * Having now Told what best merits mention, further pains Our present purpose seems not to require, And I have other tasks. Recall to mind
375 The mood in which this labour was begun. 0 Friend! the termination of my course Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then, In that distraction, and intense desire, 1 said unto the life which I had lived,
