Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/416

390 In awful sovereignty—a place of power—

—A Throne, which may be likened unto his,

Who, in some placid day of summer, looks

Down from a mountain-top,—say one of those

High peaks, that bound the Vale where now we are.

Faint, and diminished to the gazing eye,

Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,

With all the shapes upon their surface spread.

But, while the gross and visible frame of things

Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,

Yea almost on the mind itself, and seems

All unsubstantialized,—how loud the voice

Of waters, with invigorated peal

From the full River in the vale below,

Ascending!—For on that superior height

Who sits, is disencumbered from the press

Of near obstructions, and is privileged

To breathe in solitude above the host

Of ever-humming insects, mid thin air

That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves

Many and idle, touches not his ear;

This he is freed from, and from thousand notes

Not less unceasing, not less vain than these,—