Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/155

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

95

He took his way, impatient to accost
The Stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.


'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A Shepherd-lad;—who ere his sixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters,—with the mariners
A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a Shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees:—and, when the regular wind
Between the tropics filled the steady sail,
And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,
Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless Main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze;
And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam
Flashed round him images and hues that wrought

In union with the employment of his heart,