Fears in Solitude by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF AN INVASION

A Green and silent spot, amid the hills, / A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place / No singing sky-lark ever poised himself. / The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, / Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, / All golden with the never-bloomless furze, / Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell, / Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate / As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax, / When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, / The level sunshine glimmers with green light. / Oh! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook! / Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he, / The humble man, who, in his youthful years, / Knew just so much of folly, as had made / His early manhood more securely wise! / Here he might lie on fern or withered heath, / While from the singing lark (that sings unseen / The minstrelsy that solitude loves best), / And from the sun, and from the breezy air, / Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame; / And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, / Made up a meditative joy, and found / Religious meanings in the forms of Nature! / And so, his senses gradually wrapt / In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds, / And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark; / That singest like an angel in the clouds!