Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/383

BOOK XIV.] This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist

Without Imagination, which, in truth,

Is but another name for absolute power

And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,

And Reason in her most exalted mood.

This faculty hath been the feeding source

Of our long labour: we have traced the stream

From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard

Its natal murmur; followed it to light

And open day; accompanied its course

Among the ways of Nature, for a time

Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed:

Then given it greeting as it rose once more

In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

The works of man and face of human life;

And lastly, from its progress have we drawn

Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought

Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

Imagination having been our theme,

So also hath that intellectual Love,

For they are each in each, and cannot stand

Dividually.—Here must thou be, O Man!

Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;

Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: