Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence.
A power is passing from the earth.
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room; And hermits are contented with their cells.
Worse than idle is compassion if it ends in tears and sighs.
Not in Utopia, -- subterranean fields, --Or some secreted island, Heaven knows whereBut in the very world, which is the worldOf all of us, -- the place where in the endWe find our happiness, or not at all
Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,- Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me.