Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/347

339 So once it would have been,—'tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control:

A power is gone, which nothing can restore;

A deep distress hath humaniz'd my Soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold

A smiling sea and be what I have been:

The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,

If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,

This Work of thine I blame not, but commend;

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

Oh 'tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well;

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;

That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,

This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves,

Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,

The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.