O 'tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well, 45
Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it braves, 50
Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time,
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known, 55
Is to be pitied: for 'tis surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.—
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 60
2. FOUR SUMMER WEEKS. In 1794 Wordsworth spent part of a summer vacation at the house of his cousin, Mr. Barker, at Rampside, a village near Peele Castle.
6-7. Shelley has twice imitated these lines. Compare:—
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled Image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away.
Ode to Liberty, vi.
also the following:
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it never fades away.
Evening.
9-10. The calm was so complete that it did not seem a transient mood of the sea, a passing sleep.