Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can never express, yet cannot all conceal.

And I have felt a presence that disturbs me With the joy of elevated thoughts; The earth Is like a consciousness, set free from all dim sense. A deeper shade of blessings, by my side, Echoing the light of anguish in a claim, This bond, which is above even nature; To thee is a fervid stem— To thee!

• Lord Byron