Can ever be a solitude to me,
Hath to this lonely summit given my name.”
Of his wife he wrote, after three years of marriage, words contrasting his first impressions as a lover with the sweet, solemn experience of a husband. Then “a phantom of delight, ... a lovely apparition, ... a dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay,” but now
“A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright