Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/63

37 With tender chearfulness; and with a voice

That seem'd the very sound of happy thoughts.

I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale,

With my accustomed load; in heat and cold,

Through many a wood, and many an open ground,

In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair,

Drooping, or blithe of heart, as might befal;

My best companions now the driving winds,

And now the "trotting brooks" and whispering trees,

And now the music of my own sad steps,

With many a short-lived thought that pass'd between,

And disappeared.—I journey'd back this way

Towards the wane of Summer; when the wheat

Was yellow; and the soft and bladed grass

Springing afresh had o'er the hay-field spread

Its tender verdure. At the door arrived,

I found that she was absent. In the shade,

Where now we sit, I waited her return.

Her Cottage, then a chearful Object, wore

Its customary look,—only, I thought,

The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch,

Hung down in heavier tufts: and that bright weed,