Dark Spirit of the desart rude
	 That o'er this awful solitude,
	 Each tangled and untrodden wood,
	 Each dark and silent glen below,
5 	 Where sunlight's gleamings never glow,
	 Whilst jetty, musical and still,
	 In darkness speeds the mountain rill;
	 That o'er yon broken peaks sublime,
	 Wild shapes that mock the scythe of time,
10 	 And the pure Ellan's foamy course,
	 Wavest thy wand of magic force;
	 Art thou yon sooty and fearful fowl
	 That flaps its wing o'er the leafless oak
	 That o'er the dismal scene doth scowl
15 	 And mocketh music with its croak?

	 I've sought thee where day's beams decay
	 On the peak of the lonely hill,
	 I've sought thee where they melt away
	 By the wave of the pebbly rill;
20 	 I've strained to catch thy murky form
	 Bestride the rapid and gloomy storm;
	 Thy red and sullen eyeball's glare
	 Has shot, in a dream, thro' the midnight air
	 But never did thy shape express
25 	 Such an emphatic gloominess.

	 And where art thou, O thing of gloom? . . .
	 On Nature's unreviving tomb
	 Where sapless, blasted and alone
	 She mourns her blooming centuries gone!--
30 	 From the fresh sod the Violets peep,
	 The buds have burst their frozen sleep,
	 Whilst every green and peopled tree
	 Is alive with Earth's sweet melody.
	 But thou alone art here,
35 	 Thou desolate Oak, whose scathed head
	 For ages has never trembled,
	 Whose giant trunk dead lichens bind
	 Moaningly sighing in the wind,
	 With huge loose rocks beneath thee spread,
40 	 Thou, Thou alone art here!
	 Remote from every living thing,
	 Tree, shrub or grass or flower,
	 Thou seemest of this spot the King
	 And with a regal power
45 	 Suck like that race all sap away
	 And yet upon the spoil decay. (1811)