Thomas Doubleday (1790–1870)

THINK not the Poet’s life—although his cell

Be seldom printed by the stranger’s feet—

Hath not its silent plenitude of sweet:

Look at yon lone and solitary dell;

The stream that loiters ’mid its stones can tell

What flowerets its unnoted waters meet,

What odors o’er its narrow margin fleet;

Ay, and the Poet can repeat as well;—

The foxglove, closing inly, like a shell;

The hyacinth; the rose, of buds the chief;

The thorn, bediamonded with dewy showers;

The thyme’s wild fragrance, and the heather bell;

All, all are there. So vain is the belief

That the sequestered path has fewest flowers.