Book Eight: Retrospect—Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man

What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heardUp to thy summit, through the depth of airAscending, as if distance had the powerTo make the sounds more audible? What crowdCovers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,Though but a little family of men,Shepherds and tillers of the ground--betimesAssembled with their children and their wives,And here and there a stranger interspersed.They hold a rustic fair--a festival,Such as, on this side now, and now on that,Repeated through his tributary vales,Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,Sees annually, if clouds towards either oceanBlown from their favourite resting-place, or mistsDissolved, have left him an unshrouded head.Delightful day it is for all who dwellIn this secluded glen, and eagerlyThey give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,From byre or field the kine were brought; the sheepAre penned in cotes; the chaffering is begun.The heifer lows, uneasy at the voiceOf a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.Booths are there none; a stall or two is here;A lame man or a blind, the one to beg,The other to make music; hither, too,From far, with basket, slung upon her arm,Of hawker's wares--books, pictures, combs, and pins--Some aged woman finds her way again,Year after year, a punctual visitant!There also stands a speech-maker by rote,Pulling the strings of his boxed raree-show;And in the lapse of many years may comeProuder itinerant, mountebank, or heWhose wonders in a covered wain lie hid.But one there is, the loveliest of them all,Some sweet lass of the valley, looking outFor gains, and who that sees her would not buy?Fruits of her father's orchard, are her wares,And with the ruddy produce, she walks roundAmong the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamedOf her new office, blushing restlessly.The children now are rich, for the old to-dayAre generous as the young; and, if contentWith looking on, some ancient wedded pairSit in the shade together, while they gaze,"A cheerful smile unbends the wrinkled brow,The days departed start again to life,And all the scenes of childhood reappear,Faint, but more tranquil, like the changing sunTo him who slept at noon and wakes at eve."Thus gaiety and cheerfulness prevail,Spreading from young to old, from old to young,And no one seems to want his share.--ImmenseIs the recess, the circumambient worldMagnificent, by which they are embraced:They move about upon the soft green turf:How little they, they and their doings, seem,And all that they can further or obstruct!Through utter weakness pitiably dear,As tender infants are: and yet how great!For all things serve them: them the morning lightLoves, as it glistens on the silent rocks;And them the silent rocks, which now from highLook down upon them; the reposing clouds;The wild brooks prattling from invisible haunts;And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stirWhich animates this day their calm abode.

With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel,In that enormous City's turbulent worldOf men and things, what benefit I owedTo thee, and those domains of rural peace,Where to the sense of beauty first my heartWas opened; tract more exquisitely fairThan that famed paradise often thousand trees,Or Gehol's matchless gardens, for delightOf the Tartarian dynasty composed(Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous,China's stupendous mound) by patient toilOf myriads and boon nature's lavish help;There, in a clime from widest empire chosen,Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?)A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with domesOf pleasure sprinkled over, shady dellsFor eastern monasteries, sunny mountsWith temples crested, bridges, gondolas,Rocks, dens, and groves of foliage taught to meltInto each other their obsequious hues,Vanished and vanishing in subtle chase,Too fine to be pursued; or standing forthIn no discordant opposition, strongAnd gorgeous as the colours side by sideBedded among rich plumes of tropic birds;And mountains over all, embracing all;And all the landscape, endlessly enrichedWith waters running, falling, or asleep.

But lovelier far than this, the paradiseWhere I was reared; in Nature's primitive giftsFavoured no less, and more to every senseDelicious, seeing that the sun and sky,The elements, and seasons as they change,Do find a worthy fellow-labourer there--Man free, man working for himself, with choiceOf time, and place, and object; by his wants,His comforts, native occupations, cares,Cheerfully led to individual endsOr social, and still followed by a trainUnwooed, unthought-of even--simplicity,And beauty, and inevitable grace.

Yea, when a glimpse of those imperial bowersWould to a child be transport over-great,When but a half-hour's roam through such a placeWould leave behind a dance of images,That shall break in upon his sleep for weeks;Even then the common haunts of the green earth,And ordinary interests of man,Which they embosom, all without regardAs both may seem, are fastening on the heartInsensibly, each with the other's help.For me, when my affections first were ledFrom kindred, friends, and playmates, to partakeLove for the human creature's absolute self,That noticeable kindliness of heartSprang out of fountains, there abounding mostWhere sovereign Nature dictated the tasksAnd occupations which her beauty adorned,And Shepherds were the men that pleased me first;Not such as Saturn ruled 'mid Latian wilds,With arts and laws so tempered, that their livesLeft, even to us toiling in this late day,A bright tradition of the golden age;Not such as, 'mid Arcadian fastnessesSequestered, handed down among themselvesFelicity, in Grecian song renowned;Nor such as--when an adverse fate had driven,From house and home, the courtly band whose fortunesEntered, with Shakespeare's genius, the wild woodsOf Arden--amid sunshine or in shade,Culled the best fruits of Time's uncounted hours,Ere Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede;Or there where Perdita and FlorizelTogether danced, Queen of the feast, and King;Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is,That I had heard (what he perhaps had seen)Of maids at sunrise bringing in from farTheir May-bush , and along the streets in flocksParading with a song of taunting rhymes,Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors;Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,Tales of the May-pole dance, and wreaths that deckedPorch, door-way, or kirk-pillar; and of youths,Each with his maid, before the sun was up,By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,To drink the waters of some sainted well,And hang it round with garlands. Love survives;But, for such purpose, flowers no longer grow:The times, too sage, perhaps too proud, have droppedThese lighter graces; and the rural waysAnd manners which my childhood looked uponWere the unluxuriant produce of a lifeIntent on little but substantial needs,Yet rich in beauty, beauty that was felt.But images of danger and distress,Man suffering among awful Powers and Forms;Of this I heard, and saw enough to makeImagination restless; nor was freeMyself from frequent perils; nor were talesWanting,--the tragedies of former times,Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocksImmutable and overflowing streams,Where'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.

Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,Long springs and tepid winters, on the banksOf delicate Galesus ; and no lessThose scattered along Adria's myrtle shores:Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herdTo triumphs and to sacrificial ritesDevoted, on the inviolable streamOf rich Clitumnus ; and the goat-herd livedAs calmly, underneath the pleasant browsOf cool Lucretilis , where the pipe was heardOf Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocksWith tutelary music, from all harmThe fold protecting. I myself, matureIn manhood then, have seen a pastoral tractLike one of these, where Fancy might run wild,Though under skies less generous, less serene:There, for her own delight had Nature framedA pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanseOf level pasture, islanded with grovesAnd banked with woody risings; but the PlainEndless, here opening widely out, and thereShut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawnAnd intricate recesses, creek or baySheltered within a shelter, where at largeThe shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home.Thither he comes with spring-time, there abidesAll summer, and at sunrise ye may hearHis flageolet to liquid notes of loveAttuned, or sprightly fife resounding far.Nook is there none, nor tract of that vast spaceWhere passage opens, but the same shall haveIn turn its visitant, telling there his hoursIn unlaborious pleasure, with no taskMore toilsome than to carve a beechen bowlFor spring or fountain, which the traveller finds,When through the region he pursues at willHis devious course. A glimpse of such sweet lifeI saw when, from the melancholy wallsOf Goslar, once imperial, I renewedMy daily walk along that wide champaign,That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west,And northwards, from beneath the mountainous vergeOf the Hercynian forest, Yet, hail to youMoors, mountains, headlands, and ye hollow vales,Ye long deep channels for the Atlantic's voice,Powers of my native region! Ye that seizeThe heart with firmer grasp! Your snows and streamsUngovernable, and your terrifying winds,That howl so dismally for him who treadsCompanionless your awful solitudes!There, 'tis the shepherd's task the winter longTo wait upon the storms: of their approachSagacious, into sheltering coves he drivesHis flock, and thither from the homestead bearsA toilsome burden up the craggy ways,And deals it out, their regular nourishmentStrewn on the frozen snow. And when the springLooks out, and all the pastures dance with lambs,And when the flock, with warmer weather, climbsHigher and higher, him his office leadsTo watch their goings, whatsoever trackThe wanderers choose. For this he quits his homeAt day-spring, and no sooner doth the sunBegin to strike him with a fire-like heat,Than he lies down upon some shining rock,And breakfasts with his dog. When they have stolen,As is their wont, a pittance from strict time,For rest not needed or exchange of love,Then from his couch he starts; and now his feetCrush out a livelier fragrance from the flowersOf lowly thyme, by Nature's skill enwroughtIn the wild turf: the lingering dews of mornSmoke round him, as from hill to hill he hies,His staff protending like a hunter's spear,Or by its aid leaping from crag to crag,And o'er the brawling beds of unbridged streams.Philosophy, methinks, at Fancy's call,Might deign to follow him through what he doesOr sees in his day's march; himself he feels,In those vast regions where his service lies,A freeman, wedded to his life of hopeAnd hazard, and hard labour interchangedWith that majestic indolence so dearTo native man. A rambling school-boy, thusI felt his presence in his own domain,As of a lord and master, or a power,Or genius, under Nature, under God,Presiding; and severest solitudeHad more commanding looks when he was there.When up the lonely brooks on rainy daysAngling I went, or trod the trackless hillsBy mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyesHave glanced upon him distant a few steps,In size a giant, stalking through thick fog,His sheep like Greenland bears; or, as he steppedBeyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow,His form hath flashed upon me, glorifiedBy the deep radiance of the setting sun:Or him have I descried in distant sky,A solitary object and sublime,Above all height! like an aerial crossStationed alone upon a spiry rockOf the Chartreuse, for worship. Thus was manEnnobled outwardly before my sight,And thus my heart was early introducedTo an unconscious love and reverenceOf human nature; hence the human formTo me became an index of delight,Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.Meanwhile this creature--spiritual almostAs those of books, but more exalted far;Far more of an imaginative formThan the gay Corin of the groves, who livesFor his own fancies, or to dance by the hour,In coronal, with Phyllis in the midst--Was, for the purposes of kind, a manWith the most common; husband, father; learned,Could teach, admonish; suffered with the restFrom vice and folly, wretchedness and fear;Of this I little saw, cared less for it,But something must have felt.Call ye these appearancesWhich I beheld of shepherds in my youth,This sanctity of Nature given to man,A shadow, a delusion? ye who poreOn the dead letter, miss the spirit of things;Whose truth is not a motion or a shapeInstinct with vital functions, but a blockOr waxen image which yourselves have made,And ye adore! But blessed be the GodOf Nature and of Man that this was so;That men before my inexperienced eyesDid first present themselves thus purified,Removed, and to a distance that was fit:And so we all of us in some degreeAre led to knowledge, wheresoever led,And howsoever; were it otherwise,And we found evil fast as we find goodIn our first years, or think that it is found,How could the innocent heart bear up and live!But doubly fortunate my lot; not hereAlone, that something of a better lifePerhaps was round me than it is the privilegeOf most to move in, but that first I lookedAt Man through objects that were great or fair;First communed with him by their help. And thusWas founded a sure safeguard and defenceAgainst the weight of meanness, selfish cares,Coarse manners, vulgar passions, that beat inOn all sides from the ordinary worldIn which we traffic. Starting from this pointI had my face turned toward the truth, beganWith an advantage furnished by that kindOf prepossession, without which the soulReceives no knowledge that can bring forth good,No genuine insight ever comes to her.From the restraint of over-watchful eyesPreserved, I moved about, year after year,Happy, a and now most thankful that my walkWas guarded from too early intercourseWith the deformities of crowded life,And those ensuing laughters and contempts,Self-pleasing, which, if we would wish to thinkWith a due reverence on earth's rightful lord,Here placed to be the inheritor of heaven,Will not permit us; but pursue the mind,That to devotion willingly would rise,Into the temple and the temple's heart.

Yet deem not, Friend! that human kind with meThus early took a place pre-eminent;Nature herself was, at this unripe time,But secondary to my own pursuitsAnd animal activities, and allTheir trivial pleasures; b and when these had droopedAnd gradually expired, and Nature, prizedFor her own sake, became my joy, even then--bAnd upwards through late youth, until not lessThan two-and-twenty summers had been told--cWas Man in my affections and regardsSubordinate to her, her visible formsAnd viewless agencies: a passion, she,A rapture often, and immediate loveEver at hand; he, only a delightOccasional, an accidental grace,His hour being not yet come. Far less had thenThe inferior creatures, beast or bird, attunedMy spirit to that gentleness of love(Though they had long been carefully observed),Won from me those minute obeisancesOf tenderness, d which I may number nowWith my first blessings. Nevertheless, on theseThe light of beauty did not fall in vain,Or grandeur circumfuse them to no end.

But when that first poetic facultyOf plain Imagination and severe,No longer a mute influence of the soul,Ventured, at some rash Muse's earnest call,To try her strength among harmonious words; eAnd to book-notions and the rules of artDid knowingly conform itself; there cameAmong the simple shapes of human lifeA wilfulness of fancy and conceit; eAnd Nature and her objects beautifiedThese fictions, as in some sort, in their turn,They burnished her. From touch of this new powerNothing was safe: the elder-tree that grewBeside the well-known charnel-house had thenA dismal look: the yew-tree had its ghost,That took his station there for ornament:The dignities of plain occurrence thenWere tasteless, and truth's golden mean, a pointWhere no sufficient pleasure could be found.Then, if a widow, staggering with the blowOf her distress, was known to have turned her stepsTo the cold grave in which her husband slept,One night, or haply more than one, through painOr half-insensate impotence of mind,The fact was caught at greedily, and thereShe must be visitant the whole year through,Wetting the turf with never-ending tears.

Through quaint obliquities I might pursueThese cravings; when the fox-glove, one by one,Upwards through every stage of the tall stem,Had shed beside the public way its bells,And stood of all dismantled, save the lastLeft at the tapering ladder's top, that seemedTo bend as doth a slender blade of grassTipped with a rain-drop, Fancy loved to seat,Beneath the plant despoiled, but crested stillWith this last relic, soon itself to fall,Some vagrant mother, whose arch little ones,All unconcerned by her dejected plight,Laughed as with rival eagerness their handsGathered the purple cups that round them lay,Strewing the turf's green slope.A diamond light(Whene'er the summer sun, declining, smoteA smooth rock wet with constant springs) was seenSparkling from out a copse-clad bank that roseFronting our cottage. f Oft beside the hearthSeated, with open door, often and longUpon this restless lustre have I gazed,That made my fancy restless as itself.'Twas now for me a burnished silver shieldSuspended over a knight's tomb, who layInglorious, buried in the dusky wood:An entrance now into some magic caveOr palace built by fairies of the rock;Nor could I have been bribed to disenchantThe spectacle, by visiting the spot.Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood,Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bredBy pure Imagination: busy Power gShe was, and with her ready pupil turnedInstinctively to human passions, thenLeast understood. Yet, 'mid the fervent swarmOf these vagaries, with an eye so richAs mine was through the bounty of a grandAnd lovely region, h I had forms distinctTo steady me: each airy thought revolvedRound a substantial centre, which at onceIncited it to motion, and controlled.I did not pine like one in cities bred,As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend! iGreat Spirit as thou art, in endless dreamsOf sickliness, disjoining, joining, thingsWithout the light of knowledge. Where the harm,If, when the woodman languished with diseaseInduced by sleeping nightly on the groundWithin his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,I called the pangs of disappointed love,And all the sad etcetera of the wrong,To help him to his grave? Meanwhile the man,If not already from the woods retiredTo die at home, was haply as I knew,Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle airs,Birds, running streams, and hills so beautifulOn golden evenings, while the charcoal pileBreathed up its smoke, an image of his ghostOr spirit that full soon must take her flight.Nor shall we not be tending towards that pointOf sound humanity to which our TaleLeads, though by sinuous ways, if here I shewHow Fancy, in a season when she woveThose slender cords, to guide the unconscious BoyFor the Man's sake, could feed at Nature's callSome pensive musings which might well beseemMaturer years.A grove there is whose boughsStretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere, kWith length of shade so thick, that whoso glidesAlong the line of low-roofed water, movesAs in a cloister. Once--while, in that shadeLoitering, I watched the golden beams of lightFlung from the setting sun, as they reposedIn silent beauty on the naked ridgeOf a high eastern hill--thus flowed my thoughtsIn a pure stream of words fresh from the heart:Dear native Regions, m wheresoe'er shall closeMy mortal course, there will I think on you;Dying, will cast on you a backward look;Even as this setting sun (albeit the ValeIs no where touched by one memorial gleam)Doth with the fond remains of his last powerStill linger, and a farewell lustre shedsOn the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.

Enough of humble arguments; recal,My Song! those high emotions which thy voiceHas heretofore made known; that bursting forthOf sympathy, inspiring and inspired,When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,And all the several frames of things, like stars,Through every magnitude distinguishable,Shone mutually indebted, or half lostEach in the other's blaze, a galaxyOf life and glory. In the midst stood Man,Outwardly, inwardly contemplated,As, of all visible natures, crown, though bornOf dust, and kindred to the worm; a Being,Both in perception and discernment, firstIn every capability of rapture,Through the divine effect of power and love;As, more than anything we know, instinctWith godhead, and, by reason and by will,Acknowledging dependency sublime.

Ere long, the lonely mountains left, I moved,Begirt, from day to day, with temporal shapesOf vice and folly thrust upon my view,Objects of sport, and ridicule, and scorn,Manners and characters discriminate,And little bustling passions that eclipse,As well they might, the impersonated thought,The idea, or abstraction of the kind.

An idler among academic bowers,Such was my new condition, as at largeHas been set forth; n yet here the vulgar lightOf present, actual, superficial life,Gleaming through colouring of other times,Old usages and local privilege,Was welcome, softened, if not solemnised.

This notwithstanding, being brought more nearTo vice and guilt, forerunning wretchednessI trembled,--thought, at times, of human lifeWith an indefinite terror and dismay,Such as the storms and angry elementsHad bred in me; but gloomier far, a dimAnalogy to uproar and misrule,Disquiet, danger, and obscurity.

It might be told (but wherefore speak of thingsCommon to all?) that, seeing, I was ledGravely to ponder--judging between goodAnd evil, not as for the mind's delightBut for her guidance--one who was to act,As sometimes to the best of feeble meansI did, by human sympathy impelled:And, through dislike and most offensive pain,Was to the truth conducted; of this faithNever forsaken, that, by acting well,And understanding, I should learn to loveThe end of life, and every thing we know.

Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at timesThou canst put on an aspect most severe;London, to thee I willingly return.Erewhile my verse played idly with the flowersEnwrought upon thy mantle; satisfiedWith that amusement, and a simple lookOf child-like inquisition now and thenCast upwards on thy countenance, to detectSome inner meanings which might harbour there.But how could I in mood so light indulge,Keeping such fresh remembrance of the day,When, having thridded the long labyrinthOf the suburban villages, I firstEntered thy vast dominion? o On the roofOf an itinerant vehicle I sate,With vulgar men about me, trivial formsOf houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,--Mean shapes on every side: but, at the instant,When to myself it fairly might be said,The threshold now is overpast, (how strangeThat aught external to the living mindShould have such mighty sway! yet so it was),A weight of ages did at once descendUpon my heart; no thought embodied, noDistinct remembrances, but weight and power,--Power growing under weight: alas! I feelThat I am trifling: 'twas a moment's pause,--All that took place within me came and wentAs in a moment; yet with Time it dwells,And grateful memory, as a thing divine.

The curious traveller, who, from open day,Hath passed with torches into some huge cave,The Grotto of Antiparos, p or the DenIn old time haunted by that Danish Witch,Yordas; q he looks around and sees the vaultWidening on all sides; sees, or thinks he sees,Erelong, the massy roof above his head,That instantly unsettles and recedes,--Substance and shadow, light and darkness, allCommingled, making up a canopyOf shapes and forms and tendencies to shapeThat shift and vanish, change and interchangeLike spectres,--ferment silent and sublime!That after a short space works less and less,Till, every effort, every motion gone,The scene before him stands in perfect viewExposed, and lifeless as a written book!--But let him pause awhile, and look again,And a new quickening shall succeed, at firstBeginning timidly, then creeping fast,Till the whole cave, so late a senseless mass,Busies the eye with images and formsBoldly assembled,--here is shadowed forthFrom the projections, wrinkles, cavities,A variegated landscape,--there the shapeOf some gigantic warrior clad in mail,The ghostly semblance of a hooded monk.Veiled nun, or pilgrim resting on his staff:Strange congregation! yet not slow to meetEyes that perceive through minds that can inspire.

Even in such sort had I at first been moved,Nor otherwise continued to be moved,As I explored the vast metropolis,Fount of my country's destiny and the world's;That great emporium, chronicle at onceAnd burial-place of passions, and their homeImperial, their chief living residence.

With strong sensations teeming as it didOf past and present, such a place must needsHave pleased me, seeking knowledge at that timeFar less than craving power; yet knowledge came,Sought or unsought, and influxes of powerCame, of themselves, or at her call derivedIn fits of kindliest apprehensiveness,From all sides, when whate'er was in itselfCapacious found, or seemed to find, in meA correspondent amplitude of mind;Such is the strength and glory of our youth!The human nature unto which I feltThat I belonged, and reverenced with love,Was not a punctual presence, but a spiritDiffused through time and space, with aid derivedOf evidence from monuments, erect,Prostrate, or leaning towards their common restIn earth, the widely scattered wreck sublimeOf vanished nations, or more clearly drawnFrom books and what they picture and record.

'Tis true, the history of our native land,With those of Greece compared and popular Rome,And in our high-wrought modern narrativesStript of their harmonising soul, the lifeOf manners and familiar incidents,Had never much delighted me. And lessThan other intellects had mine been usedTo lean upon extrinsic circumstanceOf record or tradition; but a senseOf what in the Great City had been doneAnd suffered, and was doing, suffering, still,Weighed with me, could support the test of thought;And, in despite of all that had gone by,Or was departing never to return,There I conversed with majesty and powerLike independent natures. Hence the placeWas thronged with impregnations like the WildsIn which my early feelings had been nursed--Bare hills and valleys, full of caverns, rocks,And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed cragsThat into music touch the passing wind.Here then my young imagination foundNo uncongenial element; could hereAmong new objects serve or give command,Even as the heart's occasions might require,To forward reason's else too scrupulous march.The effect was, still more elevated viewsOf human nature. Neither vice nor guilt,Debasement undergone by body or mind,Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,Misery not lightly passed, but sometimes scannedMost feelingly, could overthrow my trustIn what we may become; induce beliefThat I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,A solitary, who with vain conceitsHad been inspired, and walked about in dreams.From those sad scenes when meditation turned,Lo! every thing that was indeed divineRetained its purity inviolate,Nay brighter shone, by this portentous gloomSet off; such opposition as arousedThe mind of Adam, yet in ParadiseThough fallen from bliss, when in the East he sawr Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning lightMore orient in the western cloud, that drewO'er the blue firmament a radiant white,Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.Add also, that among the multitudesOf that huge city, oftentimes was seenAffectingly set forth, more than elsewhereIs possible, the unity of man,One spirit over ignorance and vicePredominant, in good and evil hearts;One sense for moral judgments, as one eyeFor the sun's light. The soul when smitten thusBy a sublime idea, whencesoe'erVouchsafed for union or communion, feedsOn the pure bliss, and takes her rest with God.Thus from a very early age, O Friend!My thoughts by slow gradations had been drawnTo human-kind, and to the good and illOf human life: Nature had led me on;And oft amid the "busy hum" I seemed sTo travel independent of her help,As if I had forgotten her; but no,The world of human-kind outweighed not hersIn my habitual thoughts; the scale of love,Though filling daily, still was light, comparedWith that in which her mighty objects lay.