42
Stepping Westward
While my Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Ketterine,one fine evening after sunset,in our road to a Hut where,in the course of our Tour,we had been hospitably entertained some weeks before,we met,in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region,two well-dressed Women,one of whom said to us,by way of greeting,‘What,you are stepping westward?’➀
‘What,you are stepping westward?’—‘Yea.’
—’Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we,who thus together roam
In a strange Land,and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop,or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind,all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting;’twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.
The voice was soft,and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt;and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing Sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.
➀凯特林湖在苏格兰珀斯郡,洛蒙湖以东。“我的旅伴”指多萝西。
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