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Upon The Late General Fast

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

Reluctant call it was; the rite delayed; And in the Senate some there were who doffed The last of their humanity, and scoffed At providential judgments, undismayed By their own daring. But the People prayed As with one voice; their flinty heart grew soft With penitential sorrow, and aloft Their spirit mounted, crying, "God us aid!" Oh that with aspirations more intense, Chastised by self-abasement more profound, This People, once so happy, so renowned For liberty, would seek from God defense Against far heavier ill, the pestilence Of revolution, impiously unbound!

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"Reluctant call it was; the rite delayed;..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"Reluctant call it was; the rite delayed;..." 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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