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(From The Task)
’T IS pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, | |
| To peep at such a world; to see the stir | |
| Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd; | |
| To hear the roar she sends through all her gates, | |
| At a safe distance, where the dying sound | 5 |
| Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear. | |
| Thus sitting and surveying thus at ease | |
| The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced | |
| To some secure and more than mortal height, | |
| That liberates and exempts me from them all. | 10 |
| It turns submitted to my view, turns round | |
| With all its generations; I behold | |
| The tumult, and am still. The sound of war | |
| Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me; | |
| Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride | 15 |
| And avarice that make man a wolf to man, | |
| Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats, | |
| By which he speaks the language of his heart, | |
| And sigh, but never tremble at the sound. | |
| He travels and expatiates, as the bee | 20 |
| From flower to flower, so he from land to land: | |
| The manners, customs, policy of all | |
| Pay contribution to the store he gleans; | |
| He sucks intelligence in every clime, | |
| And spreads the honey of his deep research | 25 |
| At his return,—a rich repast for me. | |
| He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, | |
| Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes | |
| Discover countries, with a kindred heart | |
| Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes; | 30 |
| While fancy, like the finger of a clock, | |
| Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. | |
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