O Solitude - Henry Purcell

O Solitude! my sweetest Choice!
O Solitude! O Solitude! my sweetest Choice!
Places devoted to the Night,
remote from Tumult, and from Noise,
how ye Restless Thoughts delight!
O Solitude! O Solitude! my sweetest Choice!
O Heavens! what Content is mine
to see those Trees, which have appear'd,
from the Nativity of Time;
and, which all Ages have remitt'd,
to look to day as fresh and green,
to look to day as fresh and green,
as when their Beauties first were seen?
O! how agreeable a Sight
these hanging Mountains do appear,
which th'unhappy would invite,
to finish all their Sorrows here;
when their hard, their hard Fate makes them endure,
such Woes, such Woes as only Death can Cure.
O! how I Solitude adore,
O! how I Solitude adore,
My element of noblest wit,
Where I have learnt, Where I have learnt Apollo's lore,
Without the pains, my pains to study it:
For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy, thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own,
I hate it, I hate it for that reason too.
Because it needs must hinder me
From seeing, from seeing, and from serving thee.

O Solitude! O! how I Solitude adore.