TO THE UTILITARIANS
These lines were written and sent in a letter to Henry Crabb Robinson, dated 5th May 1833.—Ed.
Avaunt this œconomic rage!
What would it bring?—an iron age,
Where Fact with heartless search explored
Shall be Imagination’s Lord,
And sway with absolute controul 5
The god-like Functions of the Soul.
Not thus can knowledge elevate
Our Nature from her fallen state.
With sober Reason Faith unites
To vindicate the ideal rights 10
Of human-kind—the tone agreeing
Of objects with internal seeing,
Of effort with the end of Being.
Wordsworth added, in the letter to Robinson, “Is the above intelligible? I fear not! I know, however, my own meaning, and that’s enough for Manuscripts.”—Ed.