VII
ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE
"Thou look'st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now Compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link 5
United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there;—and thus did I, thy Tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave;
While thou wert chasing the wing'd butterfly 11
Through my green courts;[804] or climbing, a bold suitor
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave."[805]
FOOTNOTES:
[804] Compare To a Butterfly (1802), vol. ii. p. 284—
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
Ed.
[805] Compare The Prelude, book i. ll. 283-85—
The shadow of those towers
That yet survive, a shattered monument
Of feudal sway.
Compare also the sonnet At Furness Abbey, written in 1844.—Ed.