The Cave

The wind is up, the field is bare,
Some hermit lead me to his cell,
Where Contemplation, lonely fair,
With blessed content has chose to dwell.

Behold! it opens to my sight,
Dark in the rock, beside the flood;
Dry fern around obstructs the light;
The winds above it move the wood.

Reflected in the lake, I see
The downward mountains and the skies,
The flying bird, the waving tree,
The goats that on the hill arise.

The gray-cloaked herd drives on the cow;
The slow-paced fowler walks the heath;
A freckled pointer scours the brow;
A musing shepherd stands beneath.

Curved o'er the ruin of an oak,
The woodman lifts his axe on high;
The hills re-echo to the stroke;
I see--I see the shivers fly!

Some rural maid, with apron full,
Brings fuel to the homely flame;
I see the smoky columns roll,
And, through the chinky hut, the beam.

Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss,
Two well-met hunters talk at ease;
Three panting dogs beside repose;
One bleeding deer is stretched on grass.

A lake at distance spreads to sight,
Skirted with shady forests round;
In midst, an island's rocky height
Sustains a ruin, once renowned.

One tree bends o'er the naked walls;
Two broad-winged eagles hover nigh;
By intervals a fragment falls,
As blows the blast along the sky.

The rough-spun hinds the pinnace guide
With labouring oars along the flood;
An angler, bending o'er the tide,
Hangs from the boat the insidious wood.

Beside the flood, beneath the rocks,
On grassy bank, two lovers lean;
Bend on each other amorous looks,
And seem to laugh and kiss between.

The wind is rustling in the oak;
They seem to hear the tread of feet;
They start, they rise, look round the rock;
Again they smile, again they meet.

But see! the gray mist from the lake
Ascends upon the shady hills;
Dark storms the murmuring forests shake,
Rain beats around a hundred rills.

To Damon's homely hut I fly;
I see it smoking on the plain;
When storms are past and fair the sky,
I'll often seek my cave again.