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Who to the Solitary turned, and said,
"In sooth, with love's familiar privilege,
You have decried, in no unseemly terms
Of modesty, that wealth which is your own.
Among these Rocks and Stones, methinks, I see
More than the heedless impress that belongs
To lonely Nature's casual work: they bear
A semblance strange of power intelligent,
And of design not wholly worn away.
Boldest of plants that ever faced the wind,
How gracefully that slender Shrub looks forth
From its fantastic birth-place! And I own,
Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,
I cannot but incline to a belief
That in these shows a chronicle survives
Of purposes akin to those of Man,
But wrought with mightier arm than now prevails.
—Voiceless the Stream descends into the gulph
With timid lapse;—and lo! while in this Strait
I stand—the chasm of sky above my head
Is heaven's profoundest azure; no domain
For fickle, short-lived clouds to occupy,
