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Oh rus! quandoque ego te aspiciam? quando licebit
Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis
Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ.
Horatii Opera, 4th Sat.

[_]

In this poem the author writes in an assumed character. No man can despise the pretensions to happiness of a solitaire more than himself; but, in the alternative between society and solitude, circumstances will sometimes imperiously urge to the choice of the latter, even where the warmest social affections are implanted in the heart, and where no moral delinquency exists in the character of the person who thus retires from the world.

“I hear people talk of the raptures of solitude; and with what tenderness of affection they can love a tree, a rivulet, or a mountain. Believe

me, they are pretenders; they deceive themselves, or they seek, with their eyes open, to impose upon others. In addition to their trees and their mountains, I will give them the whole brute creation; still it will not do. There is a principle in the heart of man which demands the society of his like. He that has no such society, is in a state but one degree removed from insanity. He pines for an ear into which he might pour the story of his thoughts; for an eye that shall flash upon him with responsive intelligence; for a face, the lines of which shall talk to him in dumb, but eloquent discourse, for a heart that shall beat in unison with his own. If there is any thing in human form that does not feel these wants, that thing is not to be counted in the file for a man; the form it bears is a deception, and the legend, man, which you read in its front, is a lie. Talk to me of rivers and mountains! I venerate the grand and beautiful exhibitions and shapes of nature; no man more. I delight in solitude. I could shut myself up in it for successive days. But I know that every man, at the end of a course of this sort, will seek for the intercourse of sentiments and language. The magnificence of nature, after a time, will produce

much the same effect upon him, as if I were to set down a hungry man to a sumptuous service of plate, where all that presented itself on every side was massy silver and burnished gold, but there was no food.”

In short, let a man be ever so happy in solitude, nothing is more true than the old remark, that he will want some one to whom he may say, “I am happy.”

In solitude
What happiness! Who can enjoy alone?
Or, all enjoying, what contentment find?
MILTON.

Yes, in this world, neglected Genius, pine;
The prize of happiness shall ne'er be thine;
A melancholy journey thou must run,
Until the tedious race of life be done,
Save when to fill thy craving breast, are given
Some kind prelusive images of heaven.
No, Genius, no! 'tis well for thee, if soon
Thou quit with apathy life's giddy noon.
If thou alike or praise, or blame, canst hear,
With iron soul untouched by hope or fear;

If thou canst scorn each benefit, and fly
From friendship, gratitude, and sympathy;
'Tis well;—go on thy way;—and strive to keep,
Such is life's cheat, this undisturbed sleep.
Look not on cheeks that glow, and eyes that play
With radiance softer than the vernal day;
Look not on tears that start in passion's name,
Nor heed mild tones which music's self might claim;
Heed not the eloquence of lips which tell
Of all the secret ecstacies that dwell
With truth sincere, and love supremely blest,
By a responsive, sympathizing breast.
No!—these are mysteries of life's sacred store
Which, once unfolded, thou canst rest no more.
Thy die is cast; thy day of peace is fled;
And Nature's blackest storms surround thy head.
To common mortals these are common joys;
But not to thee;—the perilous charm destroys;
Or leaves such sad fastidious gloom behind,
That moping apathy benumbs the mind.
Go then, relinquish pleasure wouldst thou taste
One hour of comfort in life's gloomy waste.
Relinquish human converse, human things,
And all those schemes with which the wide world rings.

Yet there are charms for thee: spring's sunny hues,
The whispering breeze, and morning's glittering dews;
The toll of village bell at eventide,
The vacant ramble by the wild brook side;
The village tower that peeps among the trees,
The silent stream which curls at every breeze;
The transient sun-gleams, and the shadowy spot
Of sailing cloud, which like a breath is not;
The merry lark, that sings sweet songs of mirth,
And every bud that gems this various earth:
When calm, luxuriant, summer's fervid days
Have sunk away in one effulgent blaze,
The timid white stars, one by one, to eye,
Or deepening crimson of the twilight sky;
The witchery of rolling clouds that weave
The solemn pageant of departing eve.
The awful rock, the mountain wrapp'd in storms,
And Nature's majesty of sterner forms;
Tempest, whose blackness all creation shrouds;
The solemn march of winter's midnight clouds.
The moon's soft radiance breaking forth so white,
Amid the murmur of the gales of night;
When clouds with clouds fantastically play,
And wave their pale skirts to her liquid ray;

Or when alone the silent orb on high
Looks on the world with clear serenity;
From gloomy wood emerging to the sight,
And pouring down the vale her flood of light.
The velvet meadow, and the peaceful stream,
Where through light poplars plays the chequered gleam;
The rocking forest roused to music deep,
As o'er its wavy top thick tempests sweep;
The quiet lake reflecting in its tide
A wond'rous world to other waves denied;
Or else, in conflict, vexed by tempests rude,
Beating the dark cliff with its foamy flood:
Or now, in distant blackness, scarce survey'd
Far, far beneath the mountain's threatening shade,
While through the clouds—that rest, the stormy day,
Like travellers weary of a trackless way,
'Mid druid piles, and haunted caverns rude,
The rifted rocks of giant solitude—
Full many a mountain stream is seen to flow,
Sprung from the skies, a track of vapoury snow;
The solemn music of the ocean roar,
Or wildly surging on some desart shore;
Or when scarce curling with the zephyr bland,
Its blue waves tremble on the silvery sand.

The sweeping blast that cleaves the sounding sky;
The moorland's desolate immensity;
The lonesome bird of night, which sadly calls
To mountain streams, and mossy waterfalls;
These joys unblamed, thy mystic soul may know;
These, unpolluted by an after-woe;
For Innocence, and Purity, combine
To bless the worshipper at Nature's shrine.
To these devoted, Genius, thou shalt prove
A heaven, in solitude, of silent love.

Fleetwood, by Mr. Godwin, vol. ii. p. 200.