“I should not feel it to be strange.”
Both this and the previous Poem express the difficulty we feel in realising the death of some one who is dear to us. So Cowper wrote, after losing his mother, and in expectation that she would yet return:
“What ardently I wish’d, I long believed,
And disappointed still, was still deceived.”
XV.
A stormy change in the weather occurs: the winds “roar from yonder dropping day,” that is, from the west, into which the daylight is sinking. And all the sights and sounds of tempest alarm him for the safety of the ship, and
“But for fancies which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,[15]
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
That makes the barren branches loud.”
Yet, in fear that it may not be so—the sea calm and the wind still—“the wild unrest” would lead him to “dote and pore on” the threatening cloud, and the fiery sunset.
XVI.
This Poem is highly metaphysical. He asks whether Sorrow, which is his abiding feeling, can be such a changeling, as to alternate in his breast betwixt “calm despair” (see P. xi., 4) and “wild unrest?” (see P. xv., 4); or does she only just take this “touch of change,” as calm or storm prevails? knowing no more of transient form, than does a lake that holds “the shadow of a lark,” when reflected on its surface.
Being distinct from bodily pain, Sorrow is more like the reflection than the thing reflected. But the shock he has received has made his mind confused, and he is like a ship that strikes on a rock and founders. He becomes a