420 Thus wilful Fancy, in no hurtful mood, Engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred By pure Imagination: busy Power [g] She was, and with her ready pupil turned Instinctively to human passions, then 425 Least understood.

Yet, 'mid the fervent swarm Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich 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.