Accept, O Friend, for praise or blame,
The gift of this adventurous song;
A record which I dared to frame, 785
Though timid scruples checked me long;
They checked me—­and I left the theme
Untouched;—­in spite of many a gleam
Of fancy which thereon was shed,
Like pleasant sunbeams shifting still 790
Upon the side of a distant hill: 
But Nature might not be gainsaid;
For what I have and what I miss
I sing of these;—­it makes my bliss! 
Nor is it I who play the part, 795
But a shy spirit in my heart,
That comes and goes—­will sometimes leap
From hiding-places ten years deep;
Or haunts me with familiar face, [67]
Returning, like a ghost unlaid, 800
Until the debt I owe be paid. 
Forgive me, then; for I had been
On friendly terms with this Machine:  [M]
In him, while he was wont to trace
Our roads, through many a long year’s space, 805
A living almanack had we;
We had a speaking diary,
That in this uneventful place,
Gave to the days a mark and name
By which we knew them when they came. 810

—­Yes, I, and all about me here,
  Through all the changes of the year,
  Had seen him through the mountains go,
  In pomp of mist or pomp of snow,
  Majestically huge and slow:  815
  Or, with a milder grace [68] adorning
  The landscape of a summer’s morning;
  While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
  The moving image to detain;
  And mighty Fairfield, with a chime 820
  Of echoes, to his march kept time;
  When little other business stirred,
  And little other sound was heard;
  In that delicious hour of balm,
  Stillness, solitude, and calm, 825
  While yet the valley is arrayed,
  On this side with a sober shade;
  On that is prodigally bright—­
  Crag, lawn, and wood—­with rosy light. 
—­But most of all, thou lordly Wain! 830
  I wish to have thee here again,
  When windows flap and chimney roars,
  And all is dismal out of doors;
  And, sitting by my fire, I see
  Eight sorry carts, no less a train! 835
  Unworthy successors of thee,
  Come straggling through the wind and rain: 
  And oft, as they pass slowly on,
  Beneath my windows, [69] one by one,
  See, perched upon the naked height 840
  The summit of a cumbrous freight,
  A single traveller—­and there
  Another; then perhaps a pair—­
  The lame, the sickly, and the old;
  Men, women, heartless with the cold; 845
  And babes in wet and starveling plight;