Fears in Solitude

Fears in solitude, fear of dainty wiles, Look on the world with heavy guise; The trees, they loom dark and thick And the brook murmurs oily lies.

Dead leaves dance upon the ground, And the silence wraps the space; The world seems lost, that song be drowned, And all is buried in cold embrace.

Yet oh, wonder hides in trees, In dewdrops, in flitting breeze, The heart’s true home dwells here, So sweetly nourished through nature’s fear.

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge