Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/337

329 III.

3.

never breathed a man who when his life

Was closing might not of that life relate

Toils long and hard.—The Warrior will report

Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,

And blast of trumpets. He, who hath been doomed

To bow his forehead in the courts of kings,

Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,

Envy, and heart-inquietude, derived

From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.

I, who on ship-board lived from earliest Youth,

Could represent the countenance horrible

Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage

Of Auster and Boötes. Forty years

Over the well-steered Gallies did I rule:—

From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars,

Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;

And the broad gulfs I traversed oft—and—oft:

Of every cloud which in the heavens might stir