Why we retreat to nature...

I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION

I cannot forget with what fervid devotion
I worshipped the visions of verse and of fame;
Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean,
To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame. -

And deep were my musings in life's early blossom,
Mid the twilight of mountain-groves wandering long;
How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom,
When o'er me descended the spirit of song! -

'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened
To the rush of the pebble-paved river between,
Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened,
All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene; -

Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing,
From the gloom of the thicket that over me hung,
And the thoughts that awoke, in that rapture of feeling,
Were formed into verse as they rose to my tongue. -

Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded,
No longer your pure rural worshipper now;
In the haunts your continual presence pervaded,
Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. -

In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain,
In deep lonely glens where the waters complain,
By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain,
I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain. -

Oh, leave not, forlorn and forever forsaken,
Your pupil and victim, to life and its tears!
But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken
The glories ye showed to his earlier years.

I don't want to ever forget or loose my sense of awe or ability to be inspired by creation. To be able to have enough belief and hope and still be able to dream is still so important. William Cullen Bryant is one of those poets who "got it" but this poem also works as a warning to me. I don't want to be too beat down, too careworn, or too jaded by the world to let these emotions slip through my fingers.

AND if it is just something you experience in your youth, then I want to make sure that I'm out enjoying it now. SO, I'm going to work in the mountains next week!