. . with greedie listfull eares
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill
Like hartlesse deare, dismayed with thunders sound.
He presents a picture such as would have delighted his
own fancy, though perhaps the actual experience may not
have been unalloyed with pain. It is a picture which
in many ways resembles that presented by one of kindred
type of genius, who has already been mentioned as of
affinity with him--by Wordsworth. Wordsworth too sang
in a certain sense from the shade, far away from the
vanity of courts, and the uproar of cities; sang 'from
a still place, remote from men;' sang, like his own
Highland girl, all alone with the 'vale profound'
'overflowing with the sound;' finding, too, objects of
friendship and love in the forms of nature which
surrounded his tranquil home.
Of these two poets in their various lonelinesses
one may perhaps quote those exquisite lines written by
one of them of a somewhat differently caused isolation:
each one of them too lacked
Not friends for simple glee
Nor yet for higher sympathy.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty.
. . . . .
_He knew the rocks which angels haunt
Upon the mountains visitant;
He hath kenned them taking wing;
And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old.
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