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(From Marmion)
WHEN, musing on companions gone, | |
| We doubly feel ourselves alone, | |
| Something, my friend, we yet may gain,— | |
| There is a pleasure in this pain: | |
| It soothes the love of lonely rest, | 5 |
| Deep in each gentler heart impressed. | |
| ’T is silent, amid worldly toils, | |
| And stilled soon by mental broils; | |
| But, in a bosom thus prepared, | |
| Its still small voice is often heard, | 10 |
| Whispering a mingled sentiment, | |
| Twixt resignation and content. | |
| Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, | |
| By lone St. Mary’s silent lake: | |
| Thou know’st it well,—nor fen nor sedge | 15 |
| Pollutes the pure lake’s crystal edge; | |
| Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink | |
| At once upon the level brink; | |
| And just a trace of silver sand | |
| Marks where the water meets the land. | 20 |
| Far in the mirror, bright and blue, | |
| Each hill’s huge outline you may view; | |
| Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, | |
| Nor tree nor bush nor brake is there, | |
| Save where, of land, yon slender line | 25 |
| Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine. | |
| Yet e’en this nakedness has power, | |
| And aids the feeling of the hour; | |
| Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy, | |
| Where living thing concealed might lie; | 30 |
| Nor point, retiring, hides a dell, | |
| Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell; | |
| There ’s nothing left to fancy’s guess, | |
| You see that all is loneliness: | |
| And silence aids—though the steep hills | 35 |
| Send to the lake a thousand rills; | |
| In summer tide, so soft they weep, | |
| The sound but lulls the ear asleep; | |
| Your horse’s hoof-tread sounds too rude, | |
| So stilly is the solitude. | 40 |
| Naught living meets the eye or ear, | |
| But well I ween the dead are near; | |
| For though, in feudal strife, a foe | |
| Hath laid Our Lady’s chapel low, | |
| Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil, | 45 |
| The peasant rests him from his toil, | |
| And, dying, bids his bones be laid, | |
| Where erst his simple fathers prayed. | |
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