Chapter VI

Where every sense, in tumult drown’d,
Yields to the mighty torrent’s sound,
I loved in thoughtfulness to roam;--
Where the swift cataract, white with foam,
Rush’d down the steep, in tumult rude,
To muse in contemplative mood;
To dwell, upon the mountain’s brow,
O’er the soft scenes that spread below.
Ah! there are those, who senseless, scorn
Each joy of lovely nature born!
Nor listen to her angel voice.
Too sadly erring in their choice,
They fly the unfrequented shade,
The bower, for contemplation made;
And seek in concourse, noise, and strife,
Those calmer joys of human life
Which only in retirement dwell,
Remote from folly’s wild’ring spell.
There is a music in the sound,
That swells the eddying stream around;
A boldness in the torrent’s flood;
A calmness in the waving wood;
A softness in the verdant vale
Where fragrant flowers their balm exhale;
That fills the bosom with delight,
And charms the child of nature’s sight.

VII

I loved to stand upon the rock,
Sear’d many an age by thunder’s shock,
And mark the boiling flood beneath
Toss its wild foam, in many a wreath;
And count each bubble, as it rose,
Like joy’s bright gem, midst seas of woes;
Whelm’d, instant, in the rushing tide;--
Too vain and empty to abide.
So rise, upon life’s flowing stream,
The gay, who shine in folly’s beam:--
They glitter bright their little hour,
The shallow tools of transient power.
Then, like the bubble on the wave,
They sink beneath the pow’r that gave
Their fleeting splendour; by the frown
Of tyrants hurl’d from grandeur down.