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Oh, what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
But take our greatness with our violence.

What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind,
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness.

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farm-house that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows,
The stilted water-hen
That plunged in stream again
Scared by the splashing of a hundred cows.

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone.
A grey stone fire-place with an open hearth,
A candle, and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the demonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Had seen his midnight candle glimmering.