Sonnet VII Written on Skiddaw, During a Tempest
It was a dreadful day, when late I pass’d
O’er thy dim vastness, Skiddaw!—Mist and cloud
Each subject Fell obscured, and rushing blast
To thee made darling music, wild and loud,
Thou Mountain-Monarch! Rain in torrents play’d,
As when at sea a wave is borne to Heaven,
A watery spire, then on the crew dismay’d
Of reeling ship with downward wrath is driven.
I could have thought that every living form
Had fled, or perished in that savage storm,
So desolate the day. To me were given
Peace, calmness, joy: then, to myself I said,
Can grief, time, chance, or elements controul
Man’s charter’d pride, the Liberty of Soul?