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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Cockermouth

Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

“THOU look’st upon me, and dost fondly think,

Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,

We, differing once so much, are now compeers,

Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink

Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link

United us; when thou, in boyish play,

Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey

To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink

Of light was there; and thus did I, thy tutor,

Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave;

While thou wert chasing the winged butterfly

Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,

Up to the flowers whose golden progeny

Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave.”