Talk not of books: thou hast not been with me,
Free and bareheaded where the wind is wildest,
Lifting its loud voice on the tumbling sea,
Or riding fast o'er Loughrigg's many knolls:
No, nor where ebon night's dread power is mildest,
In Kirkstone, when the wandering nightwind tolls
Hoarse minute-bells among the rocky towers:
Nor lurked at noon in Brathay's hazel bowers.
Thou hast not seen the dawn's first-blushing beams
Gild the grey battlements of Ravenscar,
The hills, the pines, the hundred foamy streams;
Nor talked all night to some most heavenly star,
Where solitude hath got her holiest dwelling,
By the black tarn where Fairfield meets Helvellyn!