“delirious man,
Whose fancy fuses old and new,
And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan.”[16]
XVII.
He hails the ship—“thou comest”—and feels as if his own whispered prayer for its safety, had been helping to waft it steadily across the sea. In spirit, he had seen it move
“thro’ circles of the bounding sky”—
the horizon at sea being always circular (see P. xii., 3)—and he would wish its speedy arrival, inasmuch as it brings “all I love.”
For doing this, he invokes a blessing upon all its future voyages. It is now bringing
“The dust of him I shall not see
Till all my widowed race be run.”[17]
XVIII.
The ship arrives, the “dear remains” are landed, and the burial is to take place.
It is something, worth the mourner’s having, that he can stand on English ground where his friend has been laid, and know that the violet will spring from his ashes.