Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/147

87 And end my days upon the ocean flood."—

To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,

And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.

By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift,

Helpless as sailor cast on desert rock;

Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,

Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.

I lay where, with his drowsy Mates, the Cock

From the cross timber of an out-house hung;

Dismally tolled, that night, the city clock!

At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,

Nor to the beggar's language could I frame my tongue.

So pass'd another day, and so the third;

Then did I try in vain the crowd's resort.

—In deep despair by frightful wishes stirr'd,

Near the sea-side I reached a ruined Fort:

There, pains which nature could no more support,

With blindness link'd, did on my vitals fall,

And I had many interruptions short

Of hideous sense; I sank, nor step could crawl

And thence was carried to a neighbouring Hospital.