Wilds horrid and dark with o'er shadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold, Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees, But I with a pleasure untold; | Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude, I am charmed with the peace ye afford; Your shades are a temple where none will intrude, The abode of my lover and Lord. | I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day, And here I am hid from its beams, Here safely contemplate a brighter display Of the noblest and holiest of themes. | Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose, Where stillness and solitude reign, To you I securely and boldly disclose The dear anguish of which I complain. | Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot By the world and its turbulent throng, The birds and the streams lend me many a note That aids meditation and song. | Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night, Love wears me and wastes me away, And often the sun has spent much of his light Ere yet I perceive it is day. | While a mantle of darkness envelops the sphere, My sorrows are sadly rehearsed, To me the dark hours are all equally dear, And the last is as sweet as the first. | Here I and the beasts of the deserts agree, Mankind are the wolves that I fear, They grudge me my natural right to be free, But nobody questions it here. | Though little is found in this dreary abode That appetite wishes to find, My spirit is soothed by the presence of God, And appetite wholly resigned. | Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led, My life I in praises employ, And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed, Proceed they from sorrow or joy. | There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern, I feel out my way in the dark, Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn, Yet hardly distinguish the spark. | I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead, Such a riddle is not to be found, I am nourished without knowing how I am fed, I have nothing, and yet I abound. | Oh, love! who in darkness art pleased to abide, Though dimly, yet surely I see That these contrarieties only reside In the soul that is chosen of thee. | Ah! send me not back to the race of mankind, Perversely by folly beguiled, For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find The spirit and heart of a child? | Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free; A little one whom they despise, Though lost to the world, if in union with thee, Shall be holy, and happy, and wise. | |