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(From Fears in Solitude)
A GREEN and silent spot amid the hills, | |
| A small and silent dell! O’er stiller place | |
| No singing skylark ever poised himself. | |
| The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope | |
| Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, | 5 |
| All golden with the never-bloomless furze, | |
| Which now blooms most profusely; but the dell, | |
| Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate | |
| As vernal cornfield, or the unripe flax, | |
| When through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, | 10 |
| The level sunshine glimmers with green light. | |
| O, ’t is a quiet, spirit-healing nook! | |
| Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he, | |
| The humble man, who in his youthful years | |
| Knew just so much of folly as had made | 15 |
| His early manhood more securely wise! | |
| Here he might lie on fern or withered heath, | |
| While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen | |
| The minstrelsy that solitude loves best), | |
| And from the sun, and from the breezy air, | 20 |
| Sweet influences trembled o’er his frame; | |
| And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, | |
| Made up a meditative joy, and found | |
| Religious meanings in the forms of nature! | |
| And so, his senses gradually wrapt | 25 |
| In a half-sleep, he dreams of better worlds, | |
| And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark, | |
| That singest like an angel in the clouds! * * * * * | |
| But now the gentle dewfall sends abroad | |
| The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze: | 30 |
| The light has left the summit of the hill, | |
| Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful, | |
| Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, | |
| Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot! | |
| On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, | 35 |
| Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled | |
| From bodings that have wellnigh wearied me | |
| I find myself upon the brow, and pause, | |
| Startled! And after lonely sojourning | |
| In such a quiet and surrounded nook, | 40 |
| This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main | |
| Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty | |
| Of that huge amphitheatre of rich | |
| And elmy fields, seems like society,— | |
| Conversing with the mind, and giving it | 45 |
| A livelier impulse and a dance of thought! | |
| And now, belovéd Stowey! I behold | |
| Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms | |
| Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend; | |
| And close behind them, hidden from my view, | 50 |
| Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe | |
| And my babe’s mother dwell in peace! With light | |
| And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend, | |
| Remembering thee, O green and silent dell! | |
| And grateful that by nature’s quietness | 55 |
| And solitary musings all my heart | |
| Is softened, and made worthy to indulge | |
| Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human-kind. | |
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