Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time A parti-coloured show of grave and gay, 340 Solid and light, short-sighted and profound; Of inconsiderate habits and sedate, Consorting in one mansion unreproved. The worth I knew of powers that I possessed, Though slighted and too oft misused. Besides, 345 That summer, swarming as it did with thoughts Transient and idle, lacked not intervals When Folly from the frown of fleeting Time Shrunk, and the mind experienced in herself Conformity as just as that of old 350 To the end and written spirit of God's works, Whether held forth in Nature or in Man, Through pregnant vision, separate or conjoined. When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, 355 Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude; How potent a mere image of her sway; Most potent when impressed upon the mind With an appropriate human centre--hermit, 360 Deep in the bosom of the wilderness; Votary (in vast cathedral, where no foot Is treading, where no other face is seen) Kneeling at prayers; or watchman on the top Of lighthouse, beaten by Atlantic waves; 365 Or as the soul of that great Power is met Sometimes embodied on a public road, When, for the night deserted, it assumes A character of quiet more profound Than pathless wastes. Once, when those summer months 370 Were flown, and autumn brought its annual show Of oars with oars contending, sails with sails, Upon Winander's spacious breast, it chanced That--after I had left a flower-decked room (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived 375 To a late hour), and spirits overwrought Were making night do penance for a day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness--[U] My homeward course led up a long ascent, Where the road's watery surface, to the top 380 Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon And bore the semblance of another stream Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook That murmured in the vale. [V] All else was still; No living thing appeared in earth or air, 385 And, save the flowing water's peaceful voice, Sound there was none--but, lo! an uncouth shape, Shown by a sudden turning of the road, So near that, slipping back into the shade Of a thick hawthorn, I could mark him well, 390 Myself unseen. He was of stature tall, A span above man's common measure, tall, Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man Was never seen before by night or day. Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth 395 Looked ghastly in the moonlight: from behind,