Professor John Wilson (1785–1854)

THERE is a lake hid far among the hills,

That raves around the throne of solitude,

Not fed by gentle streams, or playful rills,

But headlong cataract and rushing flood:

There gleam no lovely hues of hanging wood,

No spot of sunshine lights her sullen side;

For horror shaped the wild in wrathful mood,

And o’er the tempest heaved the mountain’s pride.

If thou art one, in dark presumption blind,

Who vainly deem’st no spirit like to thine,

That lofty genius deifies thy mind,

Fall prostrate here at Nature’s stormy shrine,

And, as the thunderous scene disturbs thy heart,

Lift thy changed eye, and own how low thou art.