To a hope Not less ambitious once among the wilds Of Sarum's Plain, [E] my youthful spirit was raised; There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs 315 Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads Lengthening in solitude their dreary line, Time with his retinue of ages fled Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear; 320 Saw multitudes of men, and, here and there, A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest, With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold; The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength, 325 Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.
I called on Darkness--but before the word Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take All objects from my sight; and lo! again The Desert visible by dismal flames; 330 It is the sacrificial altar, fed With living men--how deep the groans! the voice Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills The monumental hillocks, and the pomp Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.

335 At other moments (for through that wide waste Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds, [F] That yet survive, a work, as some divine, Shaped by the Druids, so to represent 340 Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth The constellations; gently was I charmed Into a waking dream, a reverie That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned, Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands 345 Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky, Alternately, and plain below, while breath Of music swayed their motions, and the waste Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.
This for the past, and things that may be viewed 350 Or fancied in the obscurity of years From monumental hints: and thou, O Friend! Pleased with some unpremeditated strains That served those wanderings to beguile, [G] hast said That then and there my mind had exercised 355 Upon the vulgar forms of present things, The actual world of our familiar days, Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone, An image, and a character, by books Not hitherto reflected.

[H] Call we this 360 A partial judgment--and yet why?
for _then_ We were as strangers; and I may not speak Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude, Which on thy young imagination, trained In the great City, broke like light from far.

365 Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself Witness and judge; and I remember well That in life's every-day appearances I seemed about this time to gain clear sight Of a new world--a world, too, that was fit 370 To be transmitted, and to other eyes Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws Whence spiritual dignity originates, Which do both give it being and maintain A balance, an ennobling interchange 375 Of action from without and from within; The excellence, pure function, and best power Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.
* * * * * FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT [Footnote A: Compare 'Expostulation and Reply', vol.i.p.

273: 'Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.
Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking ?' Mr.William Davies writes: "Is he absolutely right in attributing these powers to the objects of Nature, which are only symbols after all?
Is there not a more penetrative and ethereal perceptive power in the human mind, which is able to transfer itself immediately to the spiritual plane, transcending that of visible Nature?
Plato saw it; the old Vedantist still more clearly--and what is more--reached it.