Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)

A WRETCHED thing it were, to have our heart

Like a throng’d highway or a populous street,

Where every idle thought has leave to meet,

Pause, or pass on, as in an open mart;

Or like a roadside pool, which no nice art

Has guarded that the cattle may not beat

And foul it with a multitude of feet,

Till of the heavens it can give back no part.

But keep thou thine a holy Solitude:

For He, who would walk there, would walk alone;

He who would drink there, must be first endued

With single right to call that stream his own.

Keep thou thine heart close fasten’d, unreveal’d,

A fencèd garden and a fountain seal’d.