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And, sloughing weaker lives grown wan
With needs of sleep and weariness,
I quit the hallowed haunts of man
And seek the mighty wilderness.
—Now over intervening waste
Of lowland drear, and barren wold,
I scour, and ne'er assuage my haste,
Inflamed with yearnings manifold;
Drinking a distant sound that seems
To come around me like a flood;
While all the track of moonlight gleams
Before me like a streak of blood;
And bitter stifling scents are past
A-dying on the night behind,
And sudden piercing stings are cast
Against me in the tainted wind.
And lo, afar, the gradual stir,
And rising of the stray wild leaves;
The swaying pine, and shivering fir,
And windy sound that moans and heaves
