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I Watch, And Long Have Watched, With Calm Regret

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

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 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. Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate, While health, power, glory, from their height decline, Depressed; and then extinguished; and our state, In this, how different, lost Star, from thine, That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!

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"I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret..." by William Wordsworth

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William Wordsworth

About William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English Romantic poet who launched the movement with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Lyrical Ballads" (1798). His poems—including "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and "Tintern Abbey"—championed nature, memory, and the language of common speech.

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