As mine was through the bounty of a grand
  And lovely region, [h] I had forms distinct
  To steady me:  each airy thought revolved 430
  Round a substantial centre, which at once
  Incited it to motion, and controlled. 
  I did not pine like one in cities bred,
  As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend! [i]
  Great Spirit as thou art, in endless dreams 435
  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
  Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise, 440
  I called the pangs of disappointed love,
  And all the sad etcetera of the wrong,
  To help him to his grave?  Meanwhile the man,
  If not already from the woods retired
  To die at home, was haply as I knew, 445
  Withering by slow degrees, ’mid gentle airs,
  Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful
  On golden evenings, while the charcoal pile
  Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost
  Or spirit that full soon must take her flight. 450
  Nor shall we not be tending towards that point
  Of sound humanity to which our Tale
  Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I shew
  How Fancy, in a season when she wove
  Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy 455
  For the Man’s sake, could feed at Nature’s call
  Some pensive musings which might well beseem
  Maturer years. 
                A grove there is whose boughs
  Stretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere, [k]
  With length of shade so thick, that whoso glides 460
  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 reposed
  In silent beauty on the naked ridge 465
  Of a high eastern hill—­thus flowed my thoughts
  In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart: 
  Dear native Regions, [m] wheresoe’er shall close
  My mortal course, there will I think on you;
  Dying, will cast on you a backward look; 470
  Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale
  Is no where touched by one memorial gleam)
  Doth with the fond remains of his last power
  Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds
  On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose. 475

  Enough of humble arguments; recal,
  My Song! those high emotions which thy voice
  Has heretofore made known; that bursting forth
  Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,
  When everywhere a vital pulse was felt, 480
  And all the several frames of things,