The speaker is a twenty-eight-year-old poet revisiting a pastoral setting in the Wye valley that he last saw five years earlier. He possesses a highly active imagination and a deep reverence for the natural world. He experiences a tension between his nostalgic desire for his youth's visceral passion for nature and his adult philosophical understanding of human suffering. He seeks to find spiritual and emotional continuity in the face of passing time.

Dorothy is the speaker's younger sister and silent traveling companion on his walking tour of the Welsh borders. She shares his deep affection for the natural environment. Her youthful exuberance and wild eyes reflect the same ecstatic connection to nature that her brother experienced five years prior. She serves as a vital link between the speaker's past and present identities.

Nature acts as a feminine, divine presence and an active participant in the speaker's moral and spiritual development. She provides sensory beauty that heals the mind in times of urban distress. The speaker views her as a loyal companion who never betrays those who love her, acting as a supreme moral guide. She offers a silent but powerful response to human suffering.

The Hermit is an unseen figure residing in the secluded woods of the Wye valley. He functions as a projection of the speaker's own desires for isolation and retreat from urban society. He represents an idealized lifestyle of solitary self-reliance, finding warmth and spiritual sustenance entirely apart from the human world.