Imagination—here the Power so called

Through sad incompetence of human speech,

That awful Power rose from the mind's abyss

Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,

At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;

Halted without an effort to break through;

But to my conscious soul I now can say—

"I recognise thy glory:" in such strength

Of usurpation, when the light of sense

Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed

The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,

There harbours; whether we be young or old,

Our destiny, our being's heart and home,

Is with infinitude, and only there;

With hope it is, hope that can never die,

Effort, and expectation, and desire,

And something evermore about to be.

Under such banners militant, the soul

Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils

That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts

That are their own perfection and reward,

Strong in herself and in beatitude

That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile

Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds

To fertilise the whole Egyptian plain.

(VI. 593-617)