"Solitude"

To be at Peace ,comfortable ,with and within oneself, in Solitude (not Lonliness) is an Art.

"Be Still and Know"  it is one of my several Quests, but one ,never ,as yet, thrust upon me.

Bill Swann D.O.



Alone Looking at the Mountain



All the birds have flown up and gone;

A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

We never tire of looking at each other -

Only the mountain and I.

Li Po
 
 
Corot (from my memory)
 
Silence ,is not Lonely!
 
Imitate the Magnificent Trees,
 
Who speak nothing of thier Rapture,
 
But,Only,Breathe Largely
 
The Luminous Breeze
 
D.H. Lawerence




Alexander Pope, 1688-1744.


ODE ON SOLITUDE

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixt; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.



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Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1780-1820.


OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter?d visage lies, whose frown

Had wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp?d on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock?d them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

?My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!?

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.



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William Wordsworth, 1770-1850.


ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY

Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.





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Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886.


THERE IS A SOLITUDE OF SPACE

There is a solitude of space,

A solitude of sea,

A solitude of death, but these

Society shall be,

Compared with that profounder site,

That polar privacy,

A Soul admitted to Itself;

Finite Infinity.



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Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898.


SOLITUDE

I love the stillness of the wood:

I love the music of the rill:

I love to couch in pensive mood

Upon some silent hill.

Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,

The silver-crested ripples pass;

And, like a mimic brook, the breeze

Whispers among the grass.

Here from the world I win release,

Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,

Break in to mar the holy peace

Of this great solitude.

Here may the silent tears I weep

Lull the vexed spirit into rest,

As infants sob themselves to sleep

Upon a mother's breast.

But when the bitter hour is gone,

And the keen throbbing pangs are still,

Oh, sweetest then to couch alone

Upon some silent hill!

To live in joys that once have been,

To put the cold world out of sight,

And deck life's drear and barren scene

With hues of rainbow-light.

For what to man the gift of breath,

If sorrow be his lot below;

If all the day that ends in death

Be dark with clouds of woe?

Shall the poor transport of an hour

Repay long years of sore distress;

The fragrance of a lonely flower

Make glad the wilderness?

Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,

Of innocence, of love and truth!

Bright, beyond all imagining,

Thou fairy-dream of youth!

I'd give all wealth that years have piled,

The slow result of Life's decay,

To be once more a little child

For one bright summer-day.



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William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939.


LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.



And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,



And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.



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Samuel Barber, 1910-1981.

THE DESIRE FOR HERMITAGE

(from Hermit Songs, anonymous Old Irish)

Ah! To be all alone in a little cell

with nobody near me;

beloved that pilgrimage before the last pilgrimage to death.

Singing the passing hours to cloudy Heaven;

Feeding upon dry bread and water from the cold spring.

That will be an end to evil when I am alone

in a lovely little corner among tombs

far from the houses of the great.

Ah! To be all alone in a little cell, to be alone, all alone:

Alone I came into the world

alone I shall go from it.