I heard the torrents leap and gush The only one in view: A small green isle, it seemed no more, Of gentle breath and hue. The fish swam by the castle wall, 350 355 360 It was as is a new-dug grave, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is!-it is-the cannon's opening roar! 380 With spiders I had friendship made, Within a windowed niche of that high hall And watched them in their sullen trade, Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did 385 But soon in me shall loneliness renew 650 Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold. To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 685 Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep: 835 All heaven and earth are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense 840 Of that which is of all Creator and Defence. |