Explore "The Solitary" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude / To live alone, an isolated thing? / To see the busy beings round thee spring, / And care for none; in thy calm solitude, / A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude / To Zephyr's passing wing?
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove, / Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate, / Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate / As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: / He bears a load which nothing can remove, / A killing, withering weight.
He smiles-'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery; / He speaks-the cold words flow not from his soul; / He acts like others, drains the genial bowl,- / Yet, yet he longs-although he fears-to die; / He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly, / Dull life's extremest goal.