“That was a dark and low’ring day, That sealed my fate ere set of sun; My tow’ring grandeur’s passed away, The triumph of combustion won: Sad triumph! I the victim made, To supersede pickaxe and spade; I doleful, do remember well, My spirit shrieks the deed to tell, The blasting power within me pent, That boded evil, dread intent, When ‘engineers’ my entrails tore, Like ‘Guy Faux,’ laid the train in store, That was to rend my heart in twain, And hurl me to the surging main; ’Twas so my glory, quenched in night, Cast down, to mourn my dismal plight: I could recount my pride of power, Now swallowed up in one short hour, My noble site, and swelling form, That rose above the ocean’s storm, And drew majestic eagle’s flight, To rear his eyrie far from sight; And Phœbus, bright from rosy bed, His rising glories on me shed, Or, as he dipt his burning wheel, His rays my form did oft reveal, Delight of each fond gazing eye, When thus beheld at evening sky; My sombre hue in morning gray, In mist my head enwrapped all day, In cloudy darkness hid from view, With terror clad a wild-bird flew, Loud notes heard shrill upon the blast, As hast’ning on the storm-wind past; Thus veil’d in nature’s awful mood, Beloved ’mid years of solitude, Thro’ ages borne unscathed from harm, That gave my cliff’s bold front its charm; Those who the ‘picturesque’ admire, Must burn like me with jealous fire, To mark the bulwarks of our coast Appear, like me, a shattered ghost, And white-cliff’d Albion doomed to be A level coast, view’d from the sea, Shorn of its ancient majesty: O! heed your sad dejected sprite, Who just discerns by feeble light, Majestic in its strength close by, Th’ adjacent rock, that mounts the sky, For old renown made famous still, By one famed bard, immortal ‘Will:’ Make level heights! whate’er you please! For ‘Dover line’ demolish trees! But spare my country’s sacred boast, Dear ‘Shakspere’s Cliff,’ our pride of coast! For list! ’tis my departed knell, ‘Disturb not yon hoar crag--Farewell!’” ON READING WORDSWORTH’S BEAUTIFUL LINES ON GRACE DARLING.