XXV.

   To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
   To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
   Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
   And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
   To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
   With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
   Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean: 
   This is not solitude; ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled.

XXVI.

   But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
   To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
   And roam along, the world’s tired denizen,
   With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
   Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! 
   None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
   If we were not, would seem to smile the less
   Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued: 
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

XXVII.

   More blest the life of godly eremite,
   Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,
   Watching at eve upon the giant height,
   Which looks o’er waves so blue, skies so serene,
   That he who there at such an hour hath been,
   Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot;
   Then slowly tear him from the witching scene,
   Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,
Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

XXVIII.

   Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track
   Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind;
   Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack,
   And each well-known caprice of wave and wind;
   Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find,
   Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel;
   The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind,
   As breezes rise and fall, and billows swell,
Till on some jocund morn—­lo, land! and all is well.

XXIX.

   But not in silence pass Calypso’s isles,
   The sister tenants of the middle deep;
   There for the weary still a haven smiles,
   Though the fair goddess long has ceased to weep,
   And o’er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep
   For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: 
   Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leap
   Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide;
While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed.

XXX.

   Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone: 
   But trust not this; too easy youth, beware! 
   A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne,
   And thou mayst find a new Calypso there. 
   Sweet Florence! could another ever share
   This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine: 
   But checked by every tie, I may not dare
   To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.