O Mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude; Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude A field or two of brighter green, or plot...
The struggling Rill insensibly is grown Into a Brook of loud and stately march, Crossed ever and anon by plank or arch; And, for like use, lo! what might seem a zone...
My frame hath often trembled with delight When hope presented some far-distant good, That seemed from heaven descending, like the flood Of yon pure waters, from their aery height...
Not so that Pair whose youthful spirits dance With prompt emotion, urging them to pass; A sweet confusion checks the Shepherd-lass; Blushing she eyes the dizzy flood askance;...
From this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold A gloomy Niche, capacious, blank, and cold; A concave free from shrubs and mosses grey;...
Such fruitless questions may not long beguile Or plague the fancy 'mid the sculptured shows Conspicuous yet where Oroonoko flows; 'There' would the Indian answer with a smile...
A dark plume fetch me from yon blasted yew, Perched on whose top the Danish Raven croaks; Aloft, the imperial Bird of Rome invokes Departed ages, shedding where he flew...
Sacred Religion! "mother of form and fear," Dread arbitress of mutable respect, New rites ordaining when the old are wrecked, Or cease to please the fickle worshiper;...
Sad thoughts, avaunt! partake we their blithe cheer Who gathered in betimes the unshorn flock To wash the fleece, where haply bands of rock, Checking the stream, make a pool smooth and clear...
A love-lorn Maid, at some far-distant time, Came to this hidden pool, whose depths surpass In crystal clearness Dian's looking-glass; And, gazing, saw that Rose, which from the prime...
Mid-noon is past; upon the sultry mead No zephyr breathes, no cloud its shadow throws: If we advance unstrengthened by repose, Farewell the solace of the vagrant reed!...
Whence that low voice? A whisper from the heart, That told of days long past, when here I roved With friends and kindred tenderly beloved; Some who had early mandates to depart,...
No record tells of lance opposed to lance, Horse charging horse, 'mid these retired domains; Tells that their turf drank purple from the veins Of heroes, fallen, or struggling to advance,...
The old inventive Poets, had they seen, Or rather felt, the entrancement that detains Thy waters, Duddon! 'mid these flowery plains The still repose, the liquid lapse serene,...
Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap, Or quietly self-buried in earth's mould, Is that embattled House, whose massy Keep, Flung from yon cliff a shadow large and cold....
I rose while yet the cattle, heat-opprest, Crowded together under rustling trees Brushed by the current of the water-breeze; And for 'their' sakes, and love of all that rest,...
Return, Content! for fondly I pursued, Even when a child, the Streams, unheard, unseen; Through tangled woods, impending rocks between; Or, free as air, with flying inquest viewed...
Methinks 'twere no unprecedented feat Should some benignant Minister of air Lift, and encircle with a cloudy chair, The One for whom my heart shall ever beat With tenderest love; or, if a safer seat...
But here no cannon thunders to the gale; Upon the wave no haughty pendants cast A crimson splendour: lowly is the mast That rises here, and humbly spread, the sail;...
Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep; Lingering no more 'mid flower-enameled lands And blooming thickets; nor by rocky bands Held; but in radiant progress toward the Deep...