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 me the voice of Nature is a peal Of thunder rolling from the sky to shore; The winds in its wild sport, the waves’ uproar,

And still, as I behold the azure heavens With their reflections mirrored in the sea; I think of men, these dogs of strife, and leavens Of worldly joys, that tempt—weary me!

• George Gordon Byron