I could not print 

 Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps 

 Of generations of illustrious men, 

 Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass 

 Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept, 

 Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old, 

 That garden of great intellects, undisturbed. 

 Place also by the side of this dark sense 

 Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men, 

 Even the great Newton's own ethereal self. 

 Seemed humbled in these precincts, thence to be 

 The more endeared. Their several memories here 

 (Even like their persons in their portraits clothed 

 With the accustomed garb of daily life) 

 Put on a lowly and a touching grace 

 Of more distinct humanity, that left 

 All genuine admiration unimpaired. 



WILLIAM WORDSWOETH, The Prelude, iii. 258—274. 



