| Five years have past; five summers, with the length | |
| Of five long winters! and again I hear | |
| These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs | |
| With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again | |
| Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, | |
| Which on a wild secluded scene impress | |
| Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect | |
| The landscape with the quiet of the sky. | |
| The day is come when I again repose | |
| Here, under this dark sycamore, and view | |
| These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, | |
| Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, | |
| Among the woods and copses lose themselves, | |
| Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb | |
| The wild green landscape. Once again I see | |
| These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines | |
| Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, | |
| Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke | |
| Sent up, in silence, from among the trees, | |
| With some uncertain notice, as might seem, | |
| Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, | |
| Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire | |
The hermit sits alone.
(On revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour - July 13, 1798) |
