Farewell, sweetest country; out of my heart, you roses,
Wayside roses, nodding the slow traveller to keep.
Too long have I drowsed alone in the meadows deep,
Too long alone endured the silence Nature espouses.
O, the rush, the rapture of life!—throngs, lights, houses!
This is London. I wake as a sentinel from sleep.
Stunned with the fresh thunder, the harsh delightful noises,
I move entranced on the thronging pavement. How sweet,
To eyes sated with green, the dusty brick-walled street!
And the lone spirit, of self so weary, how it rejoices
To be lost in others, bathed in the tones of human voices,
And feel hurried along the happy tread of feet.
And a sense of vast sympathy my heart almost crazes,
The warmth of kindred hearts in thousands beating with mine.
Each fresh face, each figure, my spirit drinks like wine,
Thousands endlessly passing. Violets, daisies,
What is your charm to the passionate charm of faces,
This ravishing reality, this earthliness divine?
O murmur of men more sweet than all the wood's caresses.
How sweet only to be an unknown leaf that sings
In the forest of life! Cease, nature, thy whisperings,
Can I talk with leaves, or fall in love with breezes?
Beautiful boughs, your shade not a human pang appeases,
This is London. I lie, and twine in the roots of things.