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

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,

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 70 Flying from something that he dreads, than

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, perchance

If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence-wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful