"So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard-- In holiest mood.[1] Urania,[P] I shall need 25 Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep--and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 30 All strength--all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form-- Jehovah--with his thunder, and the choir Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones-- I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not 35 The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams--can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-- 40 My haunt, and the main region of my song. --Beauty--a living Presence of the earth, Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed From earth's materials--waits upon my steps; 45 Pitches her tents before me as I move, An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields--like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main[Q]--why should they be A history only of departed things, 50 Or a mere fiction of what never was? For the discerning intellect of Man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day. 55 --I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation:--and, by words Which speak of nothing more than what we are, Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 60 Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World 65 Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too-- Theme this but little heard of among men-- The external World is fitted to the Mind; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended might 70 Accomplish:--this is our high argument. --Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft Must turn elsewhere--to travel near the tribes And fellowships of men, and see ill sights Of madding passions mutually inflamed; 75 Must hear Humanity in fields and groves Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore Within the walls of cities--may these sounds 80 Have their authentic comment; that even these