That made my fancy restless as itself. 'Twas now for me a burnished silver shield 415 Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood: An entrance now into some magic cave Or palace built by fairies of the rock;

Nor could I have been bribed to disenchant 460 With length of shade so thick, that whoso 420 The spectacle by visiting the spot.

Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood,
Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings.
bred

By pure Imagination: busy Power
She was, and with her ready pupil turned
425 Instinctively to human passions, then
Least understood. Yet, 'mid the fervent 465

swarm

Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich
As mine was through the bounty of a grand
And lovely region, I had forms distinct
430 To steady me: each airy thought revolved
Round a substantial centre, which at once
Incited it to motion, and controlled.
I did not pine like one in cities bred,1
As was thy melancholy lot, dear friend!
435 Great Spirit as thou art, in endless dreams
Of sickliness, disjoining, joining, things
Without the light of knowledge. Where
the harm,

If, when the woodman languished with
disease

Induced by sleeping nightly on the ground 440 Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,

I called the pangs of disappointed love,
And all the sad etcetera of the wrong,
To help him to his grave? Meanwhile the

man,

470

glides

Along the line of low-roofed water, moves
As in a cloister. Once-while, in that shade
Loitering, I watched the golden beams of
light

Flung from the setting sun, as they re-
posed

In silent beauty on the naked ridge
Of a high eastern hill-thus flowed my
thoughts

In a pure stream of words fresh from the
heart:

Dear native Regions,1 whereso'er shall
close

My mortal course, there will I think on you
Dying, will cast on you a backward look;
Even as this setting sun (albeit the vale
Is nowhere touched by one memorial
gleam)

Doth with the fond remains of his last

power

Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds 475 On the dear mountain-tops where first he

If not already from the woods retired 445 To die at home, was haply as I knew, Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle 480 airs,

Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful

On golden evenings, while the charcoal pile Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost 450 Or spirit that full soon must take her flight.

Nor shall we not be tending towards that point

Of sound humanity to which our tale Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I show

How Fancy, in a season when she wove 455 Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy

For the Man's sake, could feed at Nature's call

1 See Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, 51-53 (p. 350).

485

rose.

Enough of humble arguments; recall, My song! those high emotions which thy voice

Has heretofore made known; that burst-
ing forth

Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,
When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,
And all the several frames of things, like

stars,

Through every magnitude distinguishable,
Shone mutually indebted, or half lost
Each in the other's blaze, a galaxy
Of life and glory. In the midst stood Man,
Outwardly, inwardly contemplated,

As, of all visible natures, crown, though
born

Of dust, and kindred to the worm; a
Being,

Both in perception and discernment, first 490 In every capability of rapture,

Through the divine effect of power and
love;

As, more than anything we know, instinct
With godhead, and, by reason and by will,
Acknowledging dependency sublime.

1 The following eight lines are recast from the
Extract, p. 223.

Beginning timidly, then creeping fast, 580 Till the whole cave, so late a senseless mass, Busies the eye with images and forms Boldly assembled,-here is shadowed forth From the projections, wrinkles, cavities, A variegated landscape,-there the shape 625 585 Of some gigantic warrior clad in mail,

'Tis true, the history of our native land, 660
With those of Greece compared and popu-
lar Rome,

And in our high-wrought modern narra-
tives