To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, <br />To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, <br />Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, <br />And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; <br />To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, <br />With the wild flock that never needs a fold; <br />Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; <br />This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold <br />Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. <br /> <br />But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men, <br />To hear, to see, to feel and to possess, <br />And roam alone, the world's tired denizen, <br />With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; <br />Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! <br />None that, with kindred consciousness endued, <br />If we were not, would seem to smile the less <br />Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued; <br />This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/solitude-3/
