StoryTitle("caps", "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PagePoem(190, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I am monarch of all I survey,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "My right there is none to dispute,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From the center all round to the sea,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "I am lord of the fowl and the brute.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O Solitude! where are the charms", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "That sages have seen in thy face?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Better dwell in the midst of alarms", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Than reign in this horrible place.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I am out of humanity's reach,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "I must finish my journey alone,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Never hear the sweet music of speech,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "I start at the sound of my own.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The beasts that roam over the plain", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "My form with indifference see;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They are so unacquainted with man,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Their tameness is shocking to me.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Society, Friendship, and Love,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Divinely bestow'd upon man,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Oh, had I the wings of a dove,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "How soon would I taste you again!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My sorrows I then might assuage", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In the ways of religion and truth,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Might learn from the wisdom of age,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ye winds that have made me your sport,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Convey to this desolate shore", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some cordial endearing report", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Of a land I shall visit no more!", "") ?>
PagePoem(191, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My friends—do they now and then send", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "A wish or a thought after me?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Oh, tell me I yet have a friend,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Though a friend I am never to see.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How fleet is a glance of the mind!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Compared with the speed of its flight,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The tempest itself lags behind,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And the swift-wingèd arrows of light.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When I think of my own native land,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In a moment I seem to be there;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But alas! recollection at hand", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Soon hurries me back to despair.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But the seafowl is gone to her nest,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The beast is laid down in his lair,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Even here is a season of rest,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And I to my cabin repair.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There's mercy in every place,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And mercy, encouraging thought!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Gives even affliction a grace,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And reconciles man to his lot.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("William Cowper.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>