Alone

Where can you go if you would be alone?

Into the forest?  There you will not lack

For company; nature with life doth teem.

Into the wilderness?  There every stone

Will bring the memories thronging back,

And angels tend you as in Jacob’s dream.

On the bare mountain peak where winds make moan?

Not there, nor in deep caves or tunnels black,

Nor by the banks of slow meandering stream;

Nor on the populous ocean, nor on throne.

But deep within the self there lies a well

Of loneliness no other soul can share:

A secret place wherein we know despair

Unless one Guest we take with us to dwell.

 

Weekly Times     7.12.62