To see things simply as they are Here at our elbows, transcends far Trying to spy out at midday Some ‘bright particular star,’ which may, Or not, be visible at night, But clearly is not in daylight; No inspiration vague outweighs The plain good common sense that says, Submit, submit! ’Tis common sense, and human wit Can ask no higher name than it. Submit, submit! SCENE V.—_The Piazza at Night._ _Di._ There have been times, not many, but enough To quiet all repinings of the heart; There have been times, in which my tranquil soul, No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed Upon its axis solidly to move, Centred and fast: no mere elastic blank For random rays to traverse unretained, But rounding luminous its fair ellipse Around its central sun. Ay, yet again, As in more faint sensations I detect, With it too, round an Inner, Mightier orb, Maybe with that too—this I dare not say— Around, yet more, more central, more supreme, Whate’er how numerous soe’er they be, I am and feel myself, where’er I wind, What vagrant chance soe’er I seem to obey Communicably theirs. O happy hours! O compensation ample for long days Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness! O beautiful, beneath the magic moon, To walk the watery way of palaces! O beautiful, o’ervaulted with gemmed blue, This spacious court, with colour and with gold, With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points, And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused); Fantastically perfect this low pile Of Oriental glory; these long ranges Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd. And the calm Campanile. Beautiful! O beautiful! and that seemed more profound, This morning by the pillar when I sat Under the great arcade, at the review, And took, and held, and ordered on my brain The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass O’ the motley facts of existence flowing by! O perfect, if ’twere all! But it is not; Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond: I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete, Of a completion over soon assumed, Of adding up too soon. What we call sin, I could believe a painful opening out Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field, Scant with lean ears of harvest, long had mocked The vext laborious farmer; came at length The deep plough in the lazy undersoil Down-driving; with a cry earth’s fibres crack, And a few months, and lo! the golden leas, And autumn’s crowded shocks and loaded wains. Let us look back on life; was any change, Any now blest expansion, but at first A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats Of moral being? To do anything, Distinct on any one thing to decide, To leave the habitual and the old, and quit The easy-chair of use and wont, seems crime To the weak soul, forgetful how at first Sitting down seemed so too.