The Poetry of Real Life A New Edition, Much Enlarged and Improved. By Henry Ellison |
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THE IMPRESSION PRODUCED BY LONDON NEAR AND AT A
DISTANCE. |
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 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
THE IMPRESSION PRODUCED BY LONDON NEAR AND AT A DISTANCE.
When to the great metropolis I come,
Somehow or other, the idea so vast
Dismembers, and the fragments round are cast
At random—the grand, conscious voice seems dumb,
Or sinks into a vague, confusëd hum,
No more articulate: but like the blast,
That o'er a treeless region rushes past,
With sound monotonous and wearisome,
Wanting that which may give it voice! but when
I go back to the quiet streams and woods,
And list afar its mighty workings, then
Sublime, on me in Nature's solitudes,
Those million faces of my fellow-men
Look forth as one, aweing my thoughtful moods!
Somehow or other, the idea so vast
Dismembers, and the fragments round are cast
At random—the grand, conscious voice seems dumb,
Or sinks into a vague, confusëd hum,
No more articulate: but like the blast,
That o'er a treeless region rushes past,
With sound monotonous and wearisome,
Wanting that which may give it voice! but when
I go back to the quiet streams and woods,
And list afar its mighty workings, then
Sublime, on me in Nature's solitudes,
Those million faces of my fellow-men
Look forth as one, aweing my thoughtful moods!
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Then, too, those million voices, fused and blent,
That sounded like the backward-plunging sea,
Become articulate and one to me:
And, in that meditative pause, are sent
Back to my ear, with meaning eloquent.
Like one great voice, all sounding in one key,
And mighty as God's voice, yea! it is He
Who speaks thereby, as from the firmament!
And like a magnifying glass that vast
And multitudinous city doth appear:
From which Man's image larger still is cast
When further off, and lesser grows when near.
Larger, when thus the parts are grandly massed,
Then like God's-image seems Man's outline here!
That sounded like the backward-plunging sea,
Become articulate and one to me:
And, in that meditative pause, are sent
Back to my ear, with meaning eloquent.
Like one great voice, all sounding in one key,
And mighty as God's voice, yea! it is He
Who speaks thereby, as from the firmament!
And like a magnifying glass that vast
And multitudinous city doth appear:
From which Man's image larger still is cast
When further off, and lesser grows when near.
Larger, when thus the parts are grandly massed,
Then like God's-image seems Man's outline here!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |