I Watch, And Long Have Watched, With Calm Regret

Composed 1819.--Published 1819[DS]

[Suggested in front of Rydal Mount, the rocky parapet being the summit of Loughrigg Fell opposite. Not once only, but a hundred times, have the feelings of this sonnet been awakened by the same objects seen from the same place.--I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret Yon slowly-sinking star--immortal Sire (So might he seem) of all the glittering quire! Blue ether still surrounds him--yet--and yet; But now the horizon's rocky parapet Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire, He burns--transmuted to a dusky fire-- Then pays submissively the appointed debt To the flying moments, and is seen no more. Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate, While health, power, glory, from their height decline, Depressed; and then extinguished: and our state, In this, how different, lost Star, from thine, That no to-morrow shall our beams restore![DT]

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