And ploughed, as with a swelling sail, The billowy clouds and starry sea: Then while thy hermit nightingale Sang on his fragrant apple-tree,— Romantic, solitary, free, The visitant of Eldurn’s shore, On such a moonlight mountain strayed As echoed to the music made By Druid harps of yore. Around thy savage hills of oak, Around thy waters bright and blue, No hunter’s horn the silence broke, No dying shriek thine echo knew; But safe, sweet Eldurn woods, to you The wounded wild deer ever ran. Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave, Whose very rocks a shelter gave From blood-pursuing man. Oh heart effusions, that arose From nightly wanderings cherished here; To him who flies from many woes, Even homeless deserts can be dear! The last and solitary cheer Of those that own no earthly home, Say—is it not, ye banished race, In such a loved and lonely place Companionless to roam? Yes! I have loved thy wild abode, Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore; Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar: For man’s neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude To tame thy torrent’s thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude. Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud Its milky bosom to the bee; Unheeded falls along the flood desolate and aged tree. Forsaken scene, how like to thee The fate of unbefriended Worth! Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls, Like thee in solitude she calls A thousand treasures forth. O! silent spirit of the place, If, lingering with the ruined year, Thy hoary form and awful face I yet might watch and worship here! Thy storm were music to mine ear, Thy wildest walk a shelter given Sublimer thoughts on earth to find, And share, with no unhallowed mind, The majesty of heaven. What though the bosom friends of Fate,— Prosperity’s unweanèd brood,— Thy consolations cannot rate, O self-dependent solitude! Yet with a spirit unsubdued, Though darkened by the clouds of Care, To worship thy congenial gloom, A pilgrim to the Prophet’s tomb Misfortune shall repair. On her the world hath never smiled Or looked but with accusing eye; All-silent goddess of the wild, To thee that misanthrope shall fly! I hear her deep soliloquy, I mark her proud but ravaged form, As stern she wraps her mantle round, And bids, on winter’s bleakest ground, Defiance to the storm. Peace to her banished heart, at last, In thy dominions shall descend, And, strong as beechwood in the blast, Her spirit shall refuse to bend; Enduring life without a friend, The world and falsehood left behind, Thy votary shall bear elate (Triumphant o’er opposing Fate), Her dark inspirèd mind.