The Solitary.

Alone! alone! How drear it is
    Always to be alone!
In such a depth of wilderness,
    The only thinking one!
The waters in their path rejoice,
    The trees together sleep -
But I have not one silver voice
    Upon my ear to creep!

The sun upon the silent hills
    His mesh of beauty weaves,
There's music in the laughing rills
    And in the whispering leaves.
The red deer like the breezes fly
    To meet the bounding roe,
But I have not a human sigh
    To cheer me as I go.

I've hated men - I hate them now -
    But, since they are not here,
I thirst for the familiar brow -
    Thirst for the stealing tear.
And I should love to see the one,
    And feel the other creep,
And then again I'd be alone
    Amid the forest deep.

I thought that I should love my hound,
    And hear my cracking gun
Till I forgot the thrilling sound
    Of voices - one by one.
I thought that in the leafy hush
    Of nature, they would die;
But, as the hindered waters rush,
    Resisted feelings fly

I'm weary of my lonely hut
    And of its blasted tree,
The very lake is like my lot,
    So silent constantly.
I've lived amid the forest gloom
    Until I almost fear -
When will the thrilling voices come
    My spirit thirsts to hear?

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis was an American author, poet, and editor who was among the most popular literary figures of his time. He founded and edited several periodicals and wrote many poems, essays, and travelogues. Willis was known for his urbane style, which influenced the development of 19th-century American literature. Despite his widespread popularity during his lifetime, his work fell out of favor in the years following his death.

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Psyche, Before The Tribunal Of Venus.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, Simple Poetry

Hero.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, Simple Poetry

Little Florence Gray

Nathaniel Parker Willis, Simple Poetry

The Shunamite.[A]

Nathaniel Parker Willis, Simple Poetry

English

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Solitude.

How still it is here in the woods. The trees
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Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
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Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
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The Solitary.

1.
Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr's passing wing?

2.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.

3.
He smiles - 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks - the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl, -
Yet, yet he longs - although he fears - to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life's extre...

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Solitude.

Now as even's warning bell
Rings the day's departing knell,
Leaving me from labour free,
Solitude, I'll walk with thee:
Whether 'side the woods we rove,
Or sweep beneath the willow grove;
Whether sauntering we proceed
Cross the green, or down the mead;
Whether, sitting down, we look
On the bubbles of the brook;
Whether, curious, waste an hour,
Pausing o'er each tasty flower;
Or, expounding nature's spells,
From the sand pick out the shells;
Or, while lingering by the streams,
Where more sweet the music seems,
Listen to the soft'ning swells
Of some distant chiming bells
Mellowing sweetly on the breeze,
Rising, falling by degrees,
Dying now, then wak'd again
In full many a 'witching strain,
Sounding, as the gale flits by,
Flats...

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Sketch Of A Schoolfellow.

He sat by me in school. His face is now
Vividly in my mind, as if he went
From me but yesterday - its pleasant smile
And the rich, joyous laughter of his eye,
And the free play of his unhaughty lip,
So redolent of his heart! He was not fair,
Nor singular, nor over-fond of books,
And never melancholy when alone.
He was the heartiest in the ring, the last
Home from the summer's wanderings, and the first
Over the threshold when the school was done.
All of us loved him. We shall speak his name
In the far years to come, and think of him
When we have lost life's simplest passages,
And pray for him - forgetting he is dead -
Life was in him so passing beautiful!

His childhood had been wasted in the close
And airless city. He had never thought
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Nathaniel Parker Willis

Autumn

I dwell alone - I dwell alone, alone,
    Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
Gilded with flashing boats
    That bring no friend to me:
O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,
    O love-pangs, let me be.

Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone
    And spices bear to sea:
Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes,
    Love-promising, entreating -
    Ah! sweet, but fleeting -
    Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.
    Hush! the wind flags and fails -
Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand -
    Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;
Their songs wake singing echoes in my land -
    They cannot hear me moan.

    One latest, solitary swallow flies
    Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest t...

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The Thorn

The days of these two years like busy ants
Have gone, confused and happy and distressed,
Rich, yet sad with aching wants,
Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.

I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,
Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain,
Till creeping joy and brief alarm
Are gone and prick me not again.

The days are gone, yet still this heart of fire
Smouldering, smoulders on with ancient love;
And the red embers of desire
I would not, oh, nor dare remove!

Where is the bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss?
Where is the light of your eyes gone?--
For now I know what darkness is....

It is the loneliness, the loneliness,
Since she that brought me here has left me here
With the sharp need o...

John Frederick Freeman