LORD BYRON’S
POEM ON SOLITUDE
Literally
solitude means the state of being alone. Some of its synonymous are ---loneliness,
isolation, seclusion, privacy and retirement.
Solitude
can be both pleasant and unpleasant. Almost all human beings want companionship
which has several advantages. A lonely person feels neglected, helpless, unsafe, unsociable, void of companionable and relationshipl qualities.
However,
all companionship, fellowship, socializing and camaraderie are not agreeable,
enjoyable, pleasing or attractive. Many people like to be far from the presence
of even friends and relatives, colleagues and team mates.
Far
from the madding crowd is a popular phrase used by those who yearn for mental, emotional
and spiritual solitude.
According
to an interpretation, Lord Byron’s poem on solitude, explores the idea that one
can feel more alone in a crowd than in nature. The poem contrasts the contentment
found in nature with the isolation and disconnection experienced among people.
Here
is an appropriate extract from the poem:
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood
and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not
man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely
been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that
never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not
solitude,
'tis
but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. But
midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to
possess, And roam alone, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us,
none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from
distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, if we were not, would
seem to smile the less of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued. This is
to be alone; this, this is solitude!
********
G.R.Kanwal
15 November 2025
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