Literature Network » William Wordsworth » Poems in Two Volumes, Volume 2 » Glen Almain or, The Narrow Glen

Glen Almain or, The Narrow Glen

  In this still place, remote from men,
  Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN;
  In this still place, where murmurs on
  But one meek Streamlet, only one:
  He sang of battles, and the breath
  Of stormy war, and violent death;
  And should, methinks, when all was past,
  Have rightfully been laid at last
  Where rocks were sudely heap'd, and rent
  As by a spirit turbulent;                                10
  Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,
  And every thing unreconciled;
  In some complaining, dim retreat,
  For fear and melancholy meet;
  But this is calm; there cannot be
  A more entire tranquillity.
  Does then the Bard sleep here indeed?
  Or is it but a groundless creed?
  What matters it? I blame them not
  Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot                          20
  Was moved; and in this way express'd
  Their notion of it's perfect rest.
  A Convent, even a hermit's Cell
  Would break the silence of this Dell:
  It is not quiet, is not ease;
  But something deeper far than these:
  The separation that is here
  Is of the grave; and of austere
  And happy feelings of the dead:
  And, therefore, was it rightly said                      30
  That Ossian, last of all his race!
  Lies buried in this lonely place.

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