Oh, that a being in this latter time
Lived such as poets in their witching lays,
Feigned were their demi-gods in nature’s prime!
The Dryad sheltered from noon’s scorching rays
By leafy canopy;—the Naiad’s days
Stealing by gently wedded to some spring,
In pure connatural essence; while the haze
Of twilight in the vale is lingering,
The Oread from the mountain-tops the sunrise welcoming.
Oh, that a man might hope to pass his life,
Where through lime, beech, and alder, the proud sun
His leafy grot scarce visited;—where strife
Is known not;—to absolve—to impeach him none;—
His moral life, and that of nature, one:—
Where fragrant thyme, and crisped heath-bells prank
The ground, all memory of the world to shun,
And piercing, while his ears heaven’s music drank,
Nature’s profoundest depths, the God of Nature thank.
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My God! this world’s a prison-house to some;
And yet to those who cannot prize its treasure,
It will not suffer them in peace to roam
Far from its perturbation and its pleasure.
No! though ye make a compact with its measure—
Except to one or two by fortune blest!—
’Twill only mock your efforts ; thus your leisure,
Yielded to her, becomes a sad unrest;—
It pays the fool the least that worships her the best.
Yet, on the other hand, if ye forego
Her haunts, and all her trammels set aside,
Though ’tis her joy ungratefully to throw
Scorn on her slaves, her vassals to deride—
“Hewers of wood, drawers of water,” plied
With daily drudgery know this truth full well—
She will from pole to pole, through time and tide
Still follow you with persecuting spell,
And by her whispers foul, make solitude a hell
Therefore breathed I this prayer, that as in years
Long parted, beings were supposed to live
Exempt from human ties;—from human tears,
And human joys;—endowed with a reprieve
From friends to flatter, or foes to forgive;
So it might fare with me!—Oh, Liberty,
I ask for thee alone;—with thee to weave
Quaint rhymes, to breathe the air, were heaven to me;
To dream myself the only living thing, save thee!
When Heaven has granted thought and energy,
Passion, Imagination, Fancy, Love,
Pleasures and pains, hopes, fears, that will not die,
’Tis surely hard to be condemned to rove
In a perpetual wilderness; to move
Unblest by freedom and humanity;—
I blame not those for whom the world has wove
Spells that to them are best reality—
Some are there ’twill not serve, nor yet will let them fly.
Oh! for an island in the boundless deep!
Where rumour of the world might never come;
Oh! for a cave where weltering waves might keep
Eternal music! round which, nightwinds roam
Incessantly, mixed with the surging foam;
And from their union bring strange sounds to birth;—
Oh, could I rest in such an uncouth home,
No foes except the elements;—the earth,
The air;—though sad, I'd learn to make with them strange mirth.
I’d learn the voices of all winds that are,
The music of all waters; and the rude
Flowers of this isle, although both “wild and rare,”
Should be by me with sympathy endued.
I would have lovers in my solitude;
Could animal being be sustained, the mind,
Such is her energy, would find all good;
And to her destiny eftsoons resigned,
In solitude would learn the infinite to find.
Oh! thou first cause, thou giver of each blessing,
E’en were I cursed, so vain a thing I’m not
As to suppose nothing is worth possessing;
That misery’s the universal lot.
A cold hand lies on me;—a weight;—from what,
Whence, where, or how—boots it not here to tell:
I only wish that I could be forgot,
And that I might inherit some small cell,
With blessings short of heaven, and curses short of hell.