I never saw so sweet a face. As that I stood before. My heart has left it dwelling place ... and can return no more.

I never saw so sweet a face. As that I stood before. My heart has left it dwelling place ... and can return no more.

How oft a summer shower has started me; to seek the shelter of a hollow tree

I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be; Where all the noises, that on peace intrude, Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee, Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am, and live with shadows tost.