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| ON your bare rocks, O barren moors, | |
| On your bare rocks I love to lie!— | |
| They stand like crags upon the shores, | |
| Or clouds upon a placid sky. | |
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| Across those spaces desolate | 5 |
| The fox pursues his lonely way, | |
| Those solitudes can fairly sate | |
| The passage of my loneliest day. | |
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| Like desert islands far at sea | |
| Where not a ship can ever land, | 10 |
| Those dim uncertainties to me | |
| For something veritable stand. | |
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| A serious place distinct from all | |
| Which busy Life delights to feel,— | |
| I stand in this deserted hall, | 15 |
| And thus the wounds of time conceal. | |
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| No friend’s cold eye, or sad delay, | |
| Shall vex me now where not a sound | |
| Falls on the ear, and every day | |
| Is soft as silence most profound. | 20 |
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| No more upon these distant worlds | |
| The agitating world can come, | |
| A single Pensive thought upholds | |
| The arches of this dreamy home. | |
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| Within the sky above, one thought | 25 |
| Replies to you, O barren moors! | |
| Between, I stand, a creature taught | |
| To stand between two silent floors. | |
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