Not in the shadowy wood,
Not in the crag-hung glen,
Not where the sleeping echoes brood
In caves untrod by men;
Not by the sea-swept shore
Where loitering surges break,
Not on the mountain hoar,
Not by the breezeless lake,
Not in the desert plain
Where man hath never stood,
Whether on isle or main--
Not there is Solitude!
There are birds in the woodland bowers,
Voices in lonely dells,
And streams that talk to the listening hours
In earth's most secret cells.
There is life on the foam-flecked sand
By ocean's curling lip,
And life on the still lake's strand
'Mid flowers that o'er it dip;
There is life in the tossing pines
That plume the mountain crest,
And life in the courser's mane that shines
As he scours the desert's breast.
But go to the crowded mart,
'Mid the sordid haunts of men,
Go there and ask thy heart,
What answer makes it then?
Go where the wine-cup's gleaming,
In hall or festal grot;
Where love-lit eyes are beaming,
But Love himself is not!--
Go--if thou wouldst be lonely--
Where the phantom Pleasure's wooed,
And own that there--there only--
'Mid crowds is Solitude.