Welcome silence! welcome peace! <br />O most welcome, holy shade! <br />Thus I prove, as years increase, <br />My heart and soul for quiet made. <br />Thus I fix my firm belief, <br />While rapture's gushing tears descend, <br />That every flower and every leaf <br />Is moral truth's unerring friend. <br /> <br />I would not, for a world of gold, <br />That Nature's lovely face should tire; <br />Fountain of blessings yet untold; <br />Pure source of intellectual fire! <br />Fancy's fair buds, the germs of song, <br />Unquicken'd 'midst the world's rude strife, <br />Shall sweet retirement render strong, <br />And morning silence bring to life. <br /> <br />Then tell me not that I shall grow <br />Forlorn, that field and woods will cloy; <br />From Nature and her changes flow <br />An everlasting tide of joy. <br />I grant that summer heats will burn, <br />That keen will come the frosty night; <br />But both shall please; and each in turn <br />Yield Reason's most supreme delight. <br /> <br />Build me a shrine, and I could kneel <br />To rural gods, or prostrate fall; <br />Did I not see, did I not feel, <br />That one Great Spirit governs all. <br />O Heaven permit, that I may lie <br />Where o'er my corpse green branches wave; <br />And those who from life's tumults fly, <br />With kindred feelings press my grave.<br /><br />Robert Bloomfield<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/solitude-150/
