Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By William ElleryChanning

309 The Barren Moors

ON your bare rocks, O barren moors,

On your bare rocks I love to lie!—

They stand like crags upon the shores,

Or clouds upon a placid sky.

Across those spaces desolate

The fox pursues his lonely way,

Those solitudes can fairly sate

The passage of my loneliest day.

Like desert islands far at sea

Where not a ship can ever land,

Those dim uncertainties to me

For something veritable stand.

A serious place distinct from all

Which busy Life delights to feel,—

I stand in this deserted hall,

And thus the wounds of time conceal.

No friend’s cold eye, or sad delay,

Shall vex me now where not a sound

Falls on the ear, and every day

Is soft as silence most profound.

No more upon these distant worlds

The agitating world can come,

A single Pensive thought upholds

The arches of this dreamy home.

Within the sky above, one thought

Replies to you, O barren moors!

Between, I stand, a creature taught

To stand between two silent floors.