Far from my dearest Friend, ’tis mine to rove
  Through bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;
  Where Derwent rests, and listens to the roar
  That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore; [1]
  Where peace to Grasmere’s lonely island leads, 5
  To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads;
  Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds,
  Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
  Where, undisturbed by winds, Winander [C] sleeps [2]
  ’Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps; 10
  Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite’s shore,
  And memory of departed pleasures, more.

    Fair scenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child,
  The echoes of your rocks my carols wild: 
  The spirit sought not then, in cherished sadness, 15
  A cloudy substitute for failing gladness. [3]
  In youth’s keen [4] eye the livelong day was bright,
  The sun at morning, and the stars at night,
  Alike, when first the bittern’s hollow bill
  Was heard, or woodcocks [D] roamed the moonlight hill. [5] 20

  In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain, [6]
  And hope itself was all I knew of pain;
  For then, the inexperienced heart would beat [7]
  At times, while young Content forsook her seat,
  And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed, 25
  Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road. [8]
  Alas! the idle tale of man is found
  Depicted in the dial’s moral round;
  Hope with reflection blends her social rays [9]
  To gild the total tablet of his days; 30
  Yet still, the sport of some malignant power,
  He knows but from its shade the present hour.
  [10]
    But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? 
  To show what pleasures yet to me remain, [11]
  Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear, [12] 35
  The history of a poet’s evening hear?

    When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still,
  Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill,
  And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen, 40
  Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between;
  When crowding cattle, checked by rails that make
  A fence far stretched into the shallow lake,
  Lashed the cool water with their restless tails,
  Or from high points of rock looked out for fanning gales;[13] 45
  When school-boys stretched their length upon the green;
  And round the broad-spread oak, a glimmering scene,
  In the rough fern-clad park, the herded deer [14]
  Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
  When horses in the sunburnt intake [E] stood, 50
  And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
  Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress,
  With forward neck the closing gate to