Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,

85

And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree; There in her mooring-place I left my bark,

And through the meadows homeward went, in grave

And serious mood; but after I had seen 90 That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts

There hung a darkness, call it solitude

Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes 95
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colors of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms that do not
live

Like living men, moved slowly through the mind

99

140

And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 24
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind, 29
With tranquil restoration:- feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's
life,

His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

1 The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern.

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

60

With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing
thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And SO I dare to hope. 65 Though, changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led; more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than

one

70

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all. I cannot paint 75 What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to

me

135

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be ma-
tured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 145 And these my exhortations! Nor, per

chance