Classic Poem

I HAVE been lonely, even from a child;
Tho' bound with sweet ties to a happy home,
With all life's sacred charities around me;
I have been lonely — for my soul had thirst
The waters of this world could not assuage:
I found them bitter, and I had high dreams,
And strange imaginations — yea, I liv'd
Amid my own creations; and a world
Of many hopes and raptures was within me,
Such as I could not tell of; for I knew
Such feelings could not bear a sympathy;
They were too sacred to admit communion,
Too blest to need it — to the fields and woods
Did my heart's fulness pour them; solitude
Was the expansion of my secret visions,
When I could ask my soul to tell me all,
And many a bright and blessed reverie
Hath cheer'd my wanderings. I have heard sweet music
In my own thoughts; mysterious harmonies,
Felt, but not understood; vague, happy musings,
And shadowy sketches of my future fate,
In young and glowing colours. Are they faded?
— Years are gone by; and once again I commune
With my own spirit — it is passionless,
And silent now, its loveliest visions over;
And yet I do not shun this scrutiny.
Tho' I have fed my heart with perishing joys,
They have not been in vain; for those wild hopes,
And noble aims, and all those proud aspirings,
Gave me a loftier being. I have plung'd
Within the maddening wave, unaw'd, to succour
An object of my love. I have stood calm
In danger's fiercest moment, with a trust
Above all mortal peril. I have wander'd
O'er moors and mountains to assuage the woes
Of human kind. In all that could excite
I have been foremost: — then have woke and wept
To feel how little and how weak I was. —

I HAVE been lonely, even from a child;
Tho' bound with sweet ties to a happy home,
With all life's sacred charities around me;
I have been lonely — for my soul had thirst
The waters of this world could not assuage:
I found them bitter, and I had high dreams,
And strange imaginations — yea, I liv'd
Amid my own creations; and a world
Of many hopes and raptures was within me,
Such as I could not tell of; for I knew
Such feelings could not bear a sympathy;
They were too sacred to admit communion,
Too blest to need it — to the fields and woods
Did my heart's fulness pour them; solitude
Was the expansion of my secret visions,
When I could ask my soul to tell me all,
And many a bright and blessed reverie
Hath cheer'd my wanderings. I have heard sweet music
In my own thoughts; mysterious harmonies,
Felt, but not understood; vague, happy musings,
And shadowy sketches of my future fate,
In young and glowing colours. Are they faded?
— Years are gone by; and once again I commune
With my own spirit — it is passionless,
And silent now, its loveliest visions over;
And yet I do not shun this scrutiny.
Tho' I have fed my heart with perishing joys,
They have not been in vain; for those wild hopes,
And noble aims, and all those proud aspirings,
Gave me a loftier being. I have plung'd
Within the maddening wave, unaw'd, to succour
An object of my love. I have stood calm
In danger's fiercest moment, with a trust
Above all mortal peril. I have wander'd
O'er moors and mountains to assuage the woes
Of human kind. In all that could excite
I have been foremost: — then have woke and wept
To feel how little and how weak I was. —