yours,
  Ye mountains! thine, O Nature!  Thou hast fed
  My lofty speculations; and in thee,
  For this uneasy heart of ours, I find
  A never-failing principle of joy 450
  And purest passion. 
                       Thou, my Friend! wert reared
  In the great city, ’mid far other scenes; [a]
  But we, by different roads, at length have gained
  The self-same bourne.  And for this cause to thee
  I speak, unapprehensive of contempt, 455
  The insinuated scoff of coward tongues,
  And all that silent language which so oft
  In conversation between man and man
  Blots from the human countenance all trace
  Of beauty and of love.  For thou hast sought 460
  The truth in solitude, and, since the days
  That gave thee liberty, full long desired,
  To serve in Nature’s temple, thou hast been
  The most assiduous of her ministers;
  In many things my brother, chiefly here 465
  In this our deep devotion. 
                              Fare thee well! 
  Health and the quiet of a healthful mind
  Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
  And yet more often living with thyself,
  And for thyself, so haply shall thy days 470
  Be many, and a blessing to mankind. [b]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  The “square” of the “small market village” of Hawkshead still remains; and the presence of the new “assembly-room” does not prevent us from realising it as open, with the “rude mass of native rock left midway” in it—­the “old grey stone,” which was the centre of the village sports.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare ‘The Excursion’, book ix. ll. 487-90: 

  ’When, on thy bosom, spacious Windermere! 
  A Youth, I practised this delightful art;
  Tossed on the waves alone, or ’mid a crew
  Of joyous comrades.’

Ed.]

[Footnote C:  Compare ‘The Excursion’, book ix. l. 544, describing “a fair Isle with birch-trees fringed,” where they gathered leaves of that shy plant (its flower was shed), the lily of the vale.—­Ed.]

[Footnote D:  These islands in Windermere are easily identified.  In the Lily of the Valley Island the plant still grows, though not abundantly; but from Lady Holme the

          ’ruins of a shrine
  Once to Our Lady dedicate’

have disappeared as completely as the shrine in St. Herbert’s Island, Derwentwater.  The third island: 

        ’musical with birds,
  That sang and ceased not—­’

may have been House Holme, or that now called Thomson’s Holme.  It could hardly have been Belle Isle; since, from its size, it could not be described as a “Sister Isle” to the one where the lily of the valley grew “beneath the oaks’ umbrageous covert.”—­Ed.]