| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | I. On Wilson’s Picture of Solitude | | By Edmund Ollier (1827–1886) |
| | | A FITTING 1 nook for meditative men!— | |
| A region of neglect and glimmering gloom, | |
| Yet secretly unfolding many a bloom | |
| Worthy of gardens,—to be denizen. | |
| A pillared grotto once was in this glen, | 5 |
| And sculptured shapes; but see how hungry doom | |
| Has gnawn them half away, while o’er them loom | |
| Black branches, arching like a dusky den; | |
| Between whose trunks you see, quite overbrowed | |
| With intertwisted foliage, dark and drear, | 10 |
| White convent walls gleam like a parting ray | |
| Under the forehead of a thunder-cloud; | |
| And silently and sad, from year to year, | |
| The cowled monk stagnates, withering away. | |
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