Sonnet LXX: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Fr

Is there a solitary wretch who hies

  To the 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

  From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,

He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know

The depth or the duration of his woe.