Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/302

280 Did of itself in modesty give way,

Like the Precursor when the Deity

Is come Whose harbinger he was; a time

In which apostasy from ancient faith

Seemed but conversion to a higher creed;

Withal a season dangerous and wild,

A time when sage Experience would have snatched

Flowers out of any hedge-row to compose

A chaplet in contempt of his grey locks.

When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag

In that unworthy service was prepared

To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,

A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;

I saw them in their rest, a sojourner

Through a whole month of calm and glassy days

In that delightful island which protects

Their place of convocation—there I heard,

Each evening, pacing by the still sea-shore,

A monitory sound that never failed,—

The sunset cannon. While the orb went down

In the tranquillity of nature, came

That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me

Without a spirit overcast by dark

Imaginations, sense of woes to come,