And children whirling in their roundabouts; With those that stretch the neck and strain
And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
Grimacing, writhing, screaming, him who grinds The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,
Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum, And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks, The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel, Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.
All movables of wonder, from all parts,
Are here, Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of knowledge, and the Learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, 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 Of man, his dulness, 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,
Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in
O blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl 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 labor, whence the strongest are not free. 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 As parts, but with a feeling of the whole. This, of all acquisitions, first awaits
On sundry and most widely different modes With education, nor with least delight
On that through which I passed. Attention springs,
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, 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,
WHAT sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air Ascending, as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green? Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee, Though but a little family of men,
Shepherds and tillers of the ground, betimes Assembled with their children and their wives, And here and there a stranger interspersed. They hold a rustic fair, -
Such as, on this side now, and now on that, Repeated through his tributary vales,
Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,
Sees annually, if clouds towards either ocean Blown from their favorite resting-place, or mists Dissolved, have left him an unshrouded head. Delightful day it is for all who dwell
To thee, and those domains of rural peace, Where to the sense of beauty first my heart Was opened; tract more exquisitely fair Than that famed paradise of ten thousand trees, Or Gehol's matchless gardens, for delight Of the Tartarian dynasty composed (Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous, China's stupendous mound) by, patient toil Of myriads and boon Nature's lavish help; There, in a clime from widest empire chosen, Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?) A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with
Of pleasure sprinkled over, shady dells For Eastern monasteries, sunny mounts With temples crested, bridges, gondolas,
Rocks, dens, and groves of foliage taught to melt Into each other their obsequious hues, Vanished and vanishing in subtle chase, Too fine to be pursued; or standing forth In no discordant opposition, strong And gorgeous as the colors side by side Bedded among rich plumes of tropic birds; And mountains over all, embracing all; And all the landscape, endlessly enriched With waters running, falling, or asleep.
But lovelier far than this the paradise Where I was reared; in Nature's primitive gifts Favored no less, and more to every sense
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