IX

As when along a level land we pace, The scene, from where our forward-moving feet Touch ground, to where the earth and heaven greet, Seems to revolve in some vast wheel’s embrace, Whose spoke-wise turning slow the eye can trace From near-by hedges, wayside trees, that fleet With rick and steading by, till all lines meet And motion dwindles in far distant space— There haply some majestic mountain mass By contrast travels with us as we go, And doth across the spirit, as we pass, The feeling of its omnipresence throw— So o’er man’s fleeting and particular fate For ever omnipresent broods the State.