335 Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness which yet survives.
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370 Once, when those summer Months Were flown, and Autumn brought its annual shew Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails, Upon Winander's9 spacious breast, it chanced That?after I had left a flower-decked room
375 (Whose in-door pastime, lighted-up, survived To a late hour) and spirits overwrought1 Were making night do penance for a day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness? My homeward course led up a long ascent
380 Where the road's watery surface, to the top Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon And bore the semblance of another stream Stealing with silent lapse2 to join the brook That murmured in the Vale. All else was still;
385 No living thing appeared in earth or air, And, save the flowing Water's peaceful voice, Sound was there none: but lo! an uncouth' shape strange Shewn by a sudden turning of the road, So near, that, slipping back into the shade 390 Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well, Myself unseen. He was of stature tall, A span3 above man's common measure tall.
8. Celestial light, referring to the universe's out-as an independent poem, which Wordsworth later ermost sphere, thought to be composed of fire. incorporated in The Prelude. 'Grain-tinctured': as if dyed in the grain, dyed fast, 2. Flowing. Wordsworth is remembering a by the dawn light. description that his sister, Dorothy, had entered 9. Lake Windermere's. into her journal in January 1798, a few days before 1. Worked up to a high pitch. Wordsworth is he composed this passage: 'The road to the village describing a party at which the 'pastime' had been of Holford glittered like another stream.' dancing. The description of the meeting with the 3. About nine inches (the distance between discharged soldier that follows was written in 1798 extended thumb and little finger).
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35 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Stiff, lank, and upright;?a more meagre0 man emaciated Was never seen before by night or day.
Long were his arms, pallid his hands;?his mouth Looked ghastly0 in the moonlight. From behind, ghostly
A mile-stone propped him; I could also ken? see
That he was clothed in military garb,
Though faded, yet entire. Companionless,
No dog attending, by no staff sustained
He stood; and in his very dress appeared
A desolation, a simplicity
To which the trappings of a gaudy world
Make a strange background. From his lips erelong
Issued low muttered sounds, as if of pain
Or some uneasy thought; yet still his form
Kept the same awful steadiness;?at his feet
His shadow lay and moved not. From self-blame
Not wholly free, I watched him thus; at length
Subduing my heart's specious cowardice,4
I left the shady nook where I had stood,
And hailed him. Slowly, from his resting-place
He rose; and, with a lean and wasted arm
In measured gesture lifted to his head,
Returned my salutation: then resumed
His station as before; and when I asked
His history, the Veteran, in reply,
Was neither slow nor eager; but, unmoved,
And with a quiet uncomplaining voice,
A stately air of mild indifference,
He told, in few plain words, a Soldier's tale?
That in the Tropic Islands he had served,
Whence he had landed, scarcely three weeks past,
That on his landing he had been dismissed,5
And now was travelling towards his native home.
This heard, I said in pity, 'Come with me.'
He stooped, and straightway from the ground took up
