According to the casement it shines through.

O solitude! thy blessed power hath swept

All earthly passions from my soul like weeds

That choke the issues of eternal love.

What now to me are hatred and revenge?

Thoughts that if fleeting through the mind would fall

Like unknown birds upon a foreign shore,

Strange, wonderful; where no false hearts are nigh

To poison life with variance and strife.

O holy Nature! thou art only love

And peace and universal unity,

From thy sweet bosom springeth up no seed

[Pg 8]

Of bitterness and sorrow, that like thorns

Cling to the vesture of mortality,

Piercing the spirit through with cruel woe.

With thee my soul could dwell for evermore,

Expanding all good feelings day by day,

Till, at the last, like roses in full bloom

The blossoms fall from pure maturity.

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