The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott Edited by his Son Edwin Elliott ... A New and Revised Edition: Two Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott |  |
What marvel, Laura, if thy minstrel shun
The peopled waste, the loneliness of crowds?
I love the streams, that mirror as they run
The voiceless clouds.
The stillness of Almighty Power is here,
And Solitude—the present Deity—
Throned on the hills that meet the bending sphere,
How silently!
O look around thee! On those rocks sublime,
Th' impression of eternal feet is seen!
These mountains are the eldest-born of Time,
Still young and green!
What nobler home, what holier company
For Love and Thought, than forests and the heath,
Where life's Great Cause, in his sublimity,
Dwells lone as Death?
What scene more fit than this, though wild and drear,
With Heav'n, the universal sea, above,
To prompt the song most sweet to lady's ear—
The lay of Love?
The peopled waste, the loneliness of crowds?
I love the streams, that mirror as they run
The voiceless clouds.
The stillness of Almighty Power is here,
And Solitude—the present Deity—
Throned on the hills that meet the bending sphere,
How silently!
O look around thee! On those rocks sublime,
Th' impression of eternal feet is seen!
These mountains are the eldest-born of Time,
Still young and green!
What nobler home, what holier company
For Love and Thought, than forests and the heath,
Where life's Great Cause, in his sublimity,
Dwells lone as Death?
58
With Heav'n, the universal sea, above,
To prompt the song most sweet to lady's ear—
The lay of Love?
| The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott | |