Note 333 — 1846
Reading edition
Professor Dowden writes of this line: “It is a sunset reflection, natural to one who has ‘kept watch o’er man’s mortality’: the day is closing, as human lives have closed; the sun went forth out of his chamber as a strong man to run a race, and now the race is over and the palm has been won: all things have their hour of fulfilment.” (See vol. v. p. 365, of his edition of Wordsworth’s Poems.)—Ed.