Classic and Contemporary Poetry
INSCRIPTION SUPPOSED FOUND ... HERMIT'S CELL: 2. UPON A ROCK, by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Pause, traveller! Whosoe'er thou be Last Line: With shapeless ruin spread around! | ||||||||
PAUSE, Traveller! whosoe'er thou be Whom chance may lead to this retreat, Where silence yields reluctantly Even to the fleecy straggler's bleat; Give voice to what my hand shall trace, And fear not lest an idle sound Of words unsuited to the place Disturb its solitude profound. I saw this Rock, while vernal air Blew softly o'er the russet heath, Uphold a Monument as fair As church or abbey furnisheth. Unsullied did it meet the day, Like marble, white, like ether, pure; As if, beneath, some hero lay, Honoured with costliest sepulture. My fancy kindled as I gazed; And, ever as the sun shone forth, The flattered structure glistened, blazed, And seemed the proudest thing on earth. But frost had reared the gorgeous Pile Unsound as those which Fortune builds -- To undermine with secret guile, Sapped by the very beam that gilds. And, while I gazed, with sudden shock Fell the whole Fabric to the ground; And naked left this dripping Rock, With shapeless ruin spread around! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A JEWISH FAMILY; IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ADMONITION [TO A TRAVELLER] by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AN APRIL MORNING by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ANIMAL TRANQUILITY AND DECAY; A SKETCH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AT FLORENCE by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS; SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH BUONAPARTE by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH COMPOSED AT NEIDPATH CASTLE, 1803 by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE NEAR CALAIS [AUGUST 1802] by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |
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