The Arkansas Advocate

WHAT IS SOLITUDE?

BY C. F. HOFFMAN.

Not in the shadowy wood,
Not in the rock-ribbed glen,
Not where the sleeping echoes brood
In caves untried by men;
Not by the sea swept shore
Where loitering surges break,
Not on the mountain hoar,
Nor by the breezeless lake,
Not on the desert plain,
Where man hath never stood,
Whether on isle or main—
Not there is Solitude!
There are birds in the woodland bowers,
Voices in lonely dells,
And streams that talk to the listening hours,
In earth's most secret cells;
There is life on the foam-decked sand;
By the ocean's curling lip,
And life on the still lake's strand
Mid the flowers that o'er it dip
There is life in the rocking pines
That sigh on the mountain's crest.
And life in the courser's mane that shines
As he scours the desert's breast:
But go to the crowded mart,
Mid the busy haunts of men;
Go there and ask thy heart
What answer makes it then?
Ay! go where wealth is flinging
Her golden lures around,
Where the trump of fame is ringing
Where pleasure's wiles abound;
Go—if thou wouldst be lonely—
Where the phantom Love is wooed
And own that there there only
Mid crowds is Solitude