| Elegiac sonnets. Volume 2 of 2
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ON BEING CAUTIONED AGAINST WALKING ON AN HEADLAND OVERLOOKING THE SEA, BECAUSE IT WAS FREQUENTED BY A LUNATIC.
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IS there a solitary wretch who hies
To a tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half utter'd lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink [Note:] SONNET LXX. Line 11. He has "no nice felicities that shrink." "'Tis delicate felicity that shrinks "When rocking winds are loud." Walpole.
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From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.
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