Yet still in me with those soft luxuries
  Mixed something of stem mood, an under-thirst
  Of vigour seldom utterly allayed. 
  And from that source how different a sadness 560
  Would issue, let one incident make known. 
  When from the Vallais we had turned, and clomb
  Along the Simplon’s steep and rugged road, [Aa]
  Following a band of muleteers, we reached
  A halting-place, where all together took 565
  Their noon-tide meal.  Hastily rose our guide,
  Leaving us at the board; awhile we lingered,
  Then paced the beaten downward way that led
  Right to a rough stream’s edge, and there broke off;
  The only track now visible was one 570
  That from the torrent’s further brink held forth
  Conspicuous invitation to ascend
  A lofty mountain.  After brief delay
  Crossing the unbridged stream, that road we took,
  And clomb with eagerness, till anxious fears 575
  Intruded, for we failed to overtake
  Our comrades gone before.  By fortunate chance,
  While every moment added doubt to doubt,
  A peasant met us, from whose mouth we learned
  That to the spot which had perplexed us first 580
  We must descend, and there should find the road,
  Which in the stony channel of the stream
  Lay a few steps, and then along its banks;
  And, that our future course, all plain to sight,
  Was downwards, with the current of that stream. 585
  Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,
  For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,
  We questioned him again, and yet again;
  But every word that from the peasant’s lips
  Came in reply, translated by our feelings, 590
  Ended in this,—­’that we had crossed the Alps’.

    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, 595
  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 600
  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; 605
  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 610
  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 615
  To fertilise the whole Egyptian plain.