[875] 1835.
Off with those clouds, ...
MS.
[876] The summit of this mountain is well chosen by Cowley as the scene of the "Vision," in which the spectral angel discourses with him concerning the government of Oliver Cromwell. "I found myself," says he, "on the top of that famous hill in the Island Mona, which has the prospect of three great, and not long since most happy, kingdoms. As soon as ever I looked upon them, they called forth the sad representation of all the sins and all the miseries that had overwhelmed them these twenty years." It is not to be denied that the changes now in progress, and the passions, and the way in which they work, strikingly resemble those which led to the disasters the philosophic writer so feelingly bewails. God grant that the resemblance may not become still more striking as months and years advance!—W. W. 1835.
The top of Snaefell (which Wordsworth names "Snafell"), the highest mountain in the Isle of Man, whence England, Scotland, and Ireland are to be seen, as mentioned in the Sonnet, is not visible from Tynwald Hill.—Ed.
XXII
"DESPOND WHO WILL—I HEARD A VOICE EXCLAIM"
Despond who will—I heard a voice exclaim,
"Though fierce the assault, and shatter'd the defence,[877]
It cannot be that Britain's social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season's rash pretence,[878] 5
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame,
When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror's aim,
Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense
The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom
To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,[879] 10
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone:
Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on,
Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle[880]
Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume."