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First Line: Power of these awful regions, hail
Last Line: The solitude of age.
Subject(s): Solitude; Loneliness


POWER of these awful regions, hail!
For sure some mighty Genius roves
With step unheard, or loves to sail
Unseen, along these cliffs and groves.

O'er the wild mountain's stormy waste,
The shatter'd crag's impending breast,
And rocks by mortal feet untrod;
Deep in the murmuring night of woods,
Or mid the headlong roar of floods,
More bright we view the present God.

More bright, than if in glittering state
O'ercanopied with gold he sat,
The pride of Phidian art confess'd.—
Hail, power sublime! thy votary shield;
O listen to my lay, and yield
A young, but weary, wanderer, rest.

But if, from rest and silence torn,
And these loved scenes, I roam afar,
By fate's returning surge down born,
To toss in care's tumultuous war;

Grant me, secure from toil and strife,
And all the vain alarms of life,
And all the rabble's feverish rage,
Remote in some obscure retreat,
At least to pass, in freedom sweet,
The solitude of age.





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