It is the bittern’s solemn cry
Far out upon the lonely moors,
Where steel-gray pools reflect the sky,
And mists arise in dim contours.
Save this, no murmur on their verge
Doth stir the stillness of the reeds;
Silent the water-snakes emerge
From writhing depths of water-weeds.
Through sedge or gorse of that morass...
As one advances up the slow ascent
Along the pathway in the woods, the trees
Change aspect, nor alone in this, but change
In stature and in power till Solitude
Seems cut out of the ancient forest. Here
Was Solitude! where man had lived of old,
Loved, serving God, and built himself a home.
Man smooths an acre on the rolling earth,
...
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours...
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
...
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself —
Finite infinity.
