Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Solitude

Solitude.

High on the bare bleak hills the shepherd lies,Watching his flocks which spot the green below;Above him spread the grey and sullen skies,And on the mountains round the unbroken snow.What voice instructs him there? The winds that blow.What friend has he? His dog. Yet with these twainHe grows a prophet of the frost and rain,And well the fox's cunning learns to know.There lies he, and through coming years must lie,More lonely than the lonely hills, for theyHave mute companions, like themselves in form;But he must live alone till life decay,See nothing save his dog, the flocks, the sky,Hear nothing save the old eternal storm.