Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute; And Care--a comforter that best could suit Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend; And Love--a charmer's voice, that used to lend, 5 More efficaciously than aught that flows From harp or lute, kind influence to compose The throbbing pulse--else troubled without end: Even Joy could tell,[383] Joy craving truce and rest From her own overflow, what power sedate 10 On those revolving motions did await Assiduously--to soothe her aching breast; And, to a point of just relief, abate The mantling triumphs of a day too blest. The following version of the last seven lines of this sonnet is from a MS. copy of it:-- The panting breast else troubled without end: And fancy prized the murmuring spinning-wheel In sympathies inexplicably fine, Instilled a confidence how sweet to feel! That ever, in the night calm, when the sheep Upon their grassy beds lay couched in sleep, The quickening spindle drew a trustier line. ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 383: 1819. And Joy can tell, ... MS. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote DR: Compare similar regrets in _The Excursion_.--ED.] "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 5 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.[384] Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate, 10 While health, power, glory, from their height decline,[385] Depressed; and then extinguished: and our state, In this, how different, lost Star, from thine, That no to-morrow shall our beams restore![DT] VARIANTS: [Footnote 384: 1837. ... to a sullen fire, That droops and dwindles; and, the appointed debt To the flying moments paid, is seen no more. 1819. ] [Footnote 385: 1837. ... glory, pitiably decline, 1819. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote DS: This sonnet was omitted in the edition of 1827.--ED.] [Footnote DT: Compare Beattie's _Hermit_ (stanza iii. l. 5)--