On Solitude

Sweet Solitude! I love thy silent shade,
I love to pause when in life's mad career;
To view the chequered path before me laid,
And turn to meditate — to hope, to fear.

'T is sweet to draw the curtain on the world,
To shut out all its tumult, all its care;
Leave the dread vortex, in which all are whirled,
And to thy shades of twilight calm repair.

Yet, Solitude, the hand divine, which made
The earth, the ocean, and the realms of air,
Pointed how far thy kingdom should extend,
And bade thee pause, for he had fixed thee there.

Then, when disgusted with the world and man,
When sick of pageantry, of pomp, and pride,
To thee I'll fly, in thee I'll seek relief,
And hope to find that calm the world denied.