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Home  »  The Complete Poetical Works by William Wordsworth  »  XVIII. ISLE OF MAN

POEMS


COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833

XVIII. ISLE OF MAN

POEMS


COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833


DID pangs of grief for lenient time too keen, Grief that devouring waves had caused, or guilt Which they had witnessed–sway the man who built This Homestead, placed where nothing could be seen, Nought heard, of ocean troubled or serene? A tired Ship-soldier on paternal land, That o’er the channel holds august command, The dwelling raised,–a veteran Marine. He, in disgust, turned from the neighbouring sea To shun the memory of a listless life 10 That hung between two callings. May no strife More hurtful here beset him, doomed though free, Self-doomed, to worse inaction, till his eye Shrink from the daily sight of earth and sky!