Poems, in Two Volumes (Wordsworth, 1807)/Volume 2/Stepping Westward
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For other versions of this work, see Stepping Westward.
3.
STEPPING WESTWARD.
While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sun-set, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, "What you are stepping westward?"
"What you are stepping westward?"—"Yea."—'Twould be a wildish destiny,If we, who thus together roamIn a strange Land, and far from home,Were in this place the guests of Chance:Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,Though home or shelter he had none,With such a Sky to lead him on? The dewy ground was dark and cold;Behind, all gloomy to behold;And stepping westward seem'd to beA kind of heavenly destiny;I liked the greeting; 'twas a soundOf something without place or bound;And seem'd to give me spiritual rightTo travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft, and she who spakeWas walking by her native Lake:The salutation had to meThe very sound of courtesy:It's power was felt; and while my eyeWas fixed upon the glowing sky,The echo of the voice enwroughtA human sweetness with the thoughtOf travelling through the world that layBefore me in my endless way.