Childe Harold's Pilgrimage [There is a pleasure in the pathless woods]

   There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

   There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

   There is society where none intrudes,

   By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

   I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

   From these our interviews, in which I steal

   From all I may be, or have been before,

   To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

   Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

   Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

   Man marks the earth with ruin--his control

   Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain

   The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

   A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

   When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

   He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

   His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields

   Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise

   And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

   For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

   Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

   And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray

   And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

   His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth: —there let him lay.