How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense
Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!
1.
IN youth have I known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held—as he with it.
In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light—such for his spirit was fit—
And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervour, what had o'er it power.
2.
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er.
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
