Stepping Westward

While my fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of Loch Katrine, 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?’

‘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 t’ 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.