Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/378

356 That vision, given to spirits of the night

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.

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

By recognitions of transcendent power,

In sense conducting to ideal form,

In soul of more than mortal privilege.

One function, above all, of such a mind

Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,

'Mid circumstances awful and sublime,

That mutual domination which she loves

To exert upon the face of outward things,

So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed

With interchangeable supremacy,

That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,

And cannot choose but feel. The power, which all

Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus

To bodily sense exhibits, is the express