Within me is a craving, and for what?
A lingering longing, dark and ill-defined,
A something wanting, but I know it not,
A missing link it is not mine to find,
A flaming fire that scorches up the mind
And goads me ever onward—onward where?
I pray—I gasp for light—for I am blind,
The light that never, never will be there;
What can that something be my spirit may not share?
LXVII.
Oh let me be, for mine is Nature's praise;
I leave the world for those it doth invite,
For those who are untaught in Nature's ways,
Who seek their pleasures in the boast of might;
Give me the wood, the ocean, and the night,
I ask no more, these, these shall be my all,
And wield my cornucopia of delight;
The crested helmet and the kingly hall
Are not for me, for them I neither care nor call.
LXVIII.
I ask not Wealth, nor wish one single hour
Where Splendour gilds the trophies of the brave,
Of purse-proud pomp, of pageantry and power
Whose flaunting grandeur can but deck the grave;
To me 'tis hollow—all is nothing save
The pine-capped mountain and the heathery plain,
The rolling forest and the leaping wave,
Oh give me back their sweetnesses again,
Those dear, those silent pleasures which can never wane!
LXIX.
Far have I wandered when the even fills
The bosom with sweet sadnesses and sighs,
When life was like the mellow on far hills
Bathed in the sunset of the summer skies
And tinged with purple—when the spirit cries
And gasps for very language but in vain,
When wavelets whisper and the heart replies,
When the soul sobs and all is hushed again
Save Tritons chanting to this pathless world of pain.
LXX.
Stay, stay thy footsteps, o'er the waters see
How calm the weary elements, how still—
For Nature too herself forgets to be,
While holy thoughts and prayers the bosom fill,
And dim the daylight quivers o'er the hill,
The creatures of the air to home and rest
Have winged their lonely journey at their will,
And no alarms alarm the human breast
And all, yea all, with heavenly quietude is blest.
LXXI.