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| ALONE, alone, on the mountain brow, | |
| The sky above, the earth below; | |
| Your comrades, the clouds, with the driving rain | |
| Bathing your roof ere it reach the plain. | |
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| Loud on its way, as a forest blast, | 5 |
| The eagle that dwells at your side sweeps past; | |
| Dark are its wings, and fierce its eye, | |
| And its shadow falls o’er you in passing by. | |
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| White with the snow of a thousand years, | |
| Tall in the distance the Chor appears; | 10 |
| Hot though the sunshine kindle the air, | |
| Still hath the winter a palace there. | |
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| Away to the south the Jumna takes | |
| Its way through the melons’ golden brakes, | |
| Through gardens, cities, and crowded plains,— | 15 |
| Little, methinks, on its course it gains. | |
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| Round are the woods of the ancient oak, | |
| And pines that scorn at the woodman’s stroke; | |
| And yet the axe is on its way | |
| Those stately trees in the dust to lay. | 20 |
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| They have opened the quarries of lime and stone; | |
| There is nothing that man will leave alone: | |
| He buildeth the house, he tilleth the soil; | |
| No place is free from care and toil. | |
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| Ye old and ye stately solitudes, | 25 |
| Where the white snow lies, and the eagle broods, | |
| Where every sound but the wind was still; | |
| Or the voice of the torrent adown the hill;— | |
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| Woe on our wretched and busy race | |
| That will not leave Nature a resting-place. | 30 |
| We roam over earth, we sail o’er the wave, | |
| Till there is not a quiet spot but the grave. | |
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