* * * * * ELEGIAC STANZAS [A] SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT Composed 1805.--Published 1807 [Sir George Beaumont painted two pictures of this subject, one of which he gave to Mrs. Wordsworth, saying she ought to have it; but Lady Beaumont interfered, and after Sir George's death she gave it to Sir Uvedale Price, at whose house at Foxley I have seen it.--I. F.] Placed by Wordsworth among his "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."--Ed. I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea. So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 5 So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away. How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 10 I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things. Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, 15 The consecration, and the Poet's dream; [1] I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20 Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine [2] Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;-- Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given. A Picture had it been of lasting ease, 25 Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. Such, in the fond illusion [3] of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: 30 And seen the soul of truth in every part, A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed. [4] 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; 35 A deep distress hath humanised 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. 40 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. O 'tis a passionate Work!--yet wise and well, 45 Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!