Of Thunder, daunting those who would approach
With hostile purposes the blessed Isle,
Truth's consecrated residence, the seat
Impregnable, of Liberty and Peace.

Yet I exult,

Casting reserve away, exult to see

An Intellectual mastery exercised

O'er the blind Elements; a purpose given,
A perseverance fed; almost a soul

Imparted to brute Matter. I rejoice,

Measuring the force of those gigantic powers,

Which by the thinking Mind have been compelled

To serve the Will of feeble-bodied Man.

For with the sense of admiration blends

The animating hope that time may come

When strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might
Of this dominion over Nature gained,

Men of all lands shall exercise the same

In due proportion to their Country's need;
Learning, though late, that all true glory rests,
AN praise, all safety, and all happiness,
Upon the Moral law. Egyptian Thebes;
Tyre by the margin of the sounding waves;
Palmyra, central in the Desart, fell;

And the Arts died by which they had been raised.
-Call Archimedes from his buried Tomb

Upon the plain of vanished Syracuse,
And feelingly the Sage shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is that Philosophy, whose sway is framed
For mere material instruments :-how weak
Those Arts, and high Inventions, if unpropped
By Virtue. He with sighs of pensive grief,

Amid his calm abstractions, would admit
That not the slender privilege is theirs

To save themselves from blank forgetfulness!

WORDSWORTH'S EXCURSION.