Sad was I, even to pain deprest,
Importunate and heavy load![A] 10
The Comforter hath found me here,
Upon this lonely road;
And many thousands now are sad—
Wait the fulfilment of their fear;
For he must die who is their stay, 15
Their glory disappear.
A Power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature's dark abyss;
But when the great and good depart[1]
What is it more than this— 20
That Man, who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return?—
Such ebb and flow must ever be,
Then wherefore should we mourn?
Charles James Fox died September 13, 1806. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time, having assumed office on the 5th February, shortly after the death of William Pitt. Wordsworth's sadness on this occasion, his recognition of Fox as great and good, and as "a Power" that was "passing from the earth," may have been due partly to personal and political sympathy, but also probably to Fox's appreciation of the better side of the French Revolution, and to his welcoming the pacific proposals of Talleyrand, perhaps also to his efforts for the abolition of slavery.
The "lonely road" referred to in these Lines, was, in all likelihood, the path from Town-end towards the Swan Inn past the Hollins, Grasmere. A "mighty unison of streams" may be heard there any autumn evening after a stormy day, and especially after long continued rain, the sound of waters from Easdale, from Greenhead Ghyll, and the slopes of Silver How, blending with that of the Rothay in the valley below. Compare Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, in 1803, p. 229 (edition 1874).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[1] 1837.
But when the Mighty pass away 1807.