The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, 710 The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows, All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts 715 Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill, Are vomiting, receiving on all sides, 720 Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms. Oh, blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl 725 Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one identity, by differences That have no law, no meaning, and no end-- Oppression, under which even highest minds Must labour, whence the strongest are not free. [d] 730 But though the picture weary out the eye, By nature an unmanageable sight, It is not wholly so to him who looks In steadiness, who hath among least things An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts 735 As parts, but with a feeling of the whole. This, of all acquisitions, first awaits On sundry and most widely different modes Of education, nor with least delight On that through which I passed. Attention springs, 740 And comprehensiveness and memory flow, From early converse with the works of God Among all regions; chiefly where appear Most obviously simplicity and power. Think, how the everlasting streams and woods, 745 Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt The roving Indian, on his desert sands: What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant show Of beauty, meets the sun-burnt Arab's eye: And, as the sea propels, from zone to zone, 750 Its currents; magnifies its shoals of life Beyond all compass; spreads, and sends aloft Armies of clouds,--even so, its powers and aspects Shape for mankind, by principles as fixed, The views and aspirations of the soul 755 To majesty. Like virtue have the forms Perennial of the ancient hills; nor less The changeful language of their countenances Quickens the slumbering mind, and aids the thoughts, However multitudinous, to move 760 With order and relation. This, if still, As hitherto, in freedom I may speak, Not violating any just restraint, As may be hoped, of real modesty,-- This did I feel, in London's vast domain. 765 The Spirit of Nature was upon me there; The soul of Beauty and enduring Life