The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, 
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 
Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, 
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, 
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 
Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound 
With which from that detested trance they leap; 
The works and ways of man, their death and birth, 
And that of him and all that his may be; 
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound 
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. 
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, 
Remote, serene, and inaccessible: 
And this, the naked countenance of earth, 
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains 
Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep 
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, 
Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice 
Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power 
Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
A city of death, distinct with many a tower 
And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing 
Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil 
Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down 
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
The limits of the dead and living world, 
Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place 
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; 
Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
So much of life and joy is lost. The race 
Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling 
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 
Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, 
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling 
Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, 
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, 
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.