102 HENRY KIRKE WHITE S POEMS. 



VERSES. 



When pride and envy, and the scorn 

 Of wealth, my heart with gall imbued, 



I thought how pleasant were the morn 

 Of silence in the solitude ; 



To hear the forest bee on wing ; 



Or by the stream, or woodland spring, 



To lie and muse alone — alone. 



While the twinkling waters moan, 



Or such wild sounds arise, as say, 



Man and noise are far away. 



Now, surely, thought I, there's enow 



To fill life's dusty way ; 

 And who will miss a poet's feet, 



Or wonder where he stray ? 

 So to the woods and waste I'll go, 



And I will build an osier bower ; 

 And sweetly there to me shall flow 



The meditative hour. 



And when the Autumn's withering hand 

 Shall strew with leaves the sylvan land^ 

 I'll to the forest caverns hie : 

 And in the dark and stormy nights 

 I'll listen to the shrieking sprites, 

 Who, in the wintry wolds and floods 

 Keep jubilee, and shred the woods ; 

 Or, as it drifted soft and slow, 

 Hurl in ten thousand shapes the snow. 

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