Scenes Favourable to Meditation

Wilds horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees,
Rocks that ivy and briars infold,
Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees,
But I with a pleasure untold,
Though awfully silent and shaggy and rude,
I am charm'd with the peace ye afford,
Your shades are a temple where none will intrude,
The abode of my Lover and Lord.
I am sick of thy splendour, O fountain of day,
And here I am hid from its beams,
Here safely contemplate a brighter display
Of the noblest and holiest themes.
Ye forests that yield me my sweetest repose,
Where stillness and solitude reign,
To you I securely and boldly disclose
The dear anguish of which I complain.
Here sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot
By the world and its turbulent throng,
The birds and the streams lend me many a note
That aids meditation and song.

Here wand'ring in scenes that are sacred to night,
Love wears me and wastes me away,
And often the sun has spent much of his light,
Ere yet I perceive it is day.
While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere,
My sorrows are sadly rehears'd,
To me the dark hours are all equally dear,
And the last is as sweet as the first.
Here I and the beasts of the desert agree,
Mankind are the wolves that I fear,
They grudge me my natural right to be free,
But nobody questions it here.
Though little is found in this dreary abode
That appetite wishes to find,
My spirit is sooth'd by the presence of God,
And appetite wholly resign'd.
Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led,
My life I in praises employ,
And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed,
Proceed they from sorrow or joy.
There is nothing I seem to have skill to discern,
I feel out my way in the dark,
Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn,
Yet hardly distinguish the spark.
I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead,
Such a riddle is not to be found,
I am nourish'd without knowing how I am fed,
I have nothing and yet I abound.
Oh Love! who in darkness art pleas'd to abide,
Though dimly yet surely I see,
That these contrarieties only reside
In the soul that is chosen of thee.
Ah send me not back to the race of mankind,
Perversely by folly beguil'd,
For where in the crowds I have left, shall I find
The spirit and heart of a Child?
Here let me, though fixt in a desert, be free,
A Little one whom they despise,
Though lost to the world, if in union with thee,
Shall be holy and happy and wise.