On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland

The poem was accompanied by an engraved illustration on the previous page, depicting a man and a woman on a cliff in stormy weather.

[2] Smith was not satisfied with the image, complaining that in the final version "the expression of the Lunatic is quite changed & instead of a Madman the figure is that of a fool with a black Wig on, & his mantle looks like a piece of ploughed field flying in the Air."

[3] 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 with 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.

[1] Smith identifies the italicized phrase in line 11 as an allusion to Horace Walpole's controversial Gothic play The Mysterious Mother (1768).