| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | V. A Light in a Distant Window among Mountains | | By William Wordsworth (1770–1850) |
| | | EVEN as a dragon’s eye that feels the stress | |
| Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp | |
| Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp, | |
| So burns yon Taper ’mid a black recess | |
| Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless; | 5 |
| The Lake below reflects it not; the sky, | |
| Muffled in clouds, affords no company | |
| To mitigate and cheer its loneliness. | |
| Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing | |
| Which sends so far its melancholy light, | 10 |
| Perhaps are seated in domestic ring | |
| A gay society, with faces bright, | |
| Conversing, reading, laughing;—or they sing, | |
| While hearts and voices in the song unite. | | | | |
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