Lichen.... Solitude.

How use doth breed a habit in a man! The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: There can I sit alone, unseen of any, And to the nightingale’s complaining notes Tune my distresses, and record my woes. Shakspeare.

Full many a dreary hour have I past, My brain bewildered, and my mind o’ercast With heaviness; in seasons when I’ve thought No sphery strains by me could e’er be caught From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays; Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely, Pry ’mong the stars, to strive to think divinely: That I should never hear Apollo’s song, Though feathery clouds were floating all along The purple west, and, two bright streaks between, The golden lyre itself were dimly seen: That the still murmur of the honey-bee Would never teach a rural song to me: That the bright glance from beauty’s eyelids slanting Would never make a lay of mine enchanting, Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold Some tale of love and arms in time of old. Keats.

No din Invades the temple of their mind;—the mirth And sighs of men are sounds to them unknown, Though well they know the spirit’s inward groan; And mortal agonies belong to them As well as to their fellow men; for death Hath passed on all who draw the vital breath, And where sin is, there doth the law condemn. Ah, hapless men! relentless Silence keeps Her watchpost at the portals of the ear; No heavenly word or sound approacheth near And music’s melting influence in lasting stillness sleeps. MacKellar.

There was a poet whose untimely tomb No human hands with pious reverence reared, But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds Built o’er his mouldering bones a pyramid Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness; A lovely youth!—no mourning maiden decked With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, The lone couch of his everlasting sleep: Gentle and brave, and generous, no lorn bard Breathed o’er his dark fate one melodious sigh: He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude. Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, And virgins, as unknown he past, have sighed And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, And Silence, too, enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. Shelley.

How blest the Solitary’s lot, Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot, Within his humble cell, The cavern wild with tangling roots, Sits o’er his newly-gathered fruits, Beside his crystal well! Or, haply, to his evening thought, By unfrequented stream, The ways of men are distant brought, A faint collected dream: While praising, and raising His thoughts to heaven on high, As wand’ring, meand’ring, He views the solemn sky. Than I, no lonely hermit placed Where never human footstep traced, Less fit to play the part; The lucky moment to improve, And just to stop, and just to move, With self-respecting art: But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys Which I too keenly taste, The Solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest! He needs not, he heeds not, Or human love or hate, Whilst I here must cry here, At perfidy ingrate! Burns.