William Wordsworth

Greenock

WE have not passed into a doleful city,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named “the Jaws of Hell”:
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty:
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy rival of old Tyre,
Whose merchants princes were, whose decks were thrones,	 
Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o’er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely herdsman’s joy and pride.