THE leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks And the simplicities of cottage life
I bade farewell; and, one among the youth Who, summoned by that season, reunite As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure, Went back to Granta's cloisters, not so prompt Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
as when I thence had taken flight
A few short months before.
Without repining from the coves and heights Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern; Quitted, not loth, the mild magnificence Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you, Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland, You and your not unwelcome days of mirth, Relinquished, and your nights of revelry, And in my own unlovely cell sat down In lightsome mood; such privilege has youth, That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
The bonds of indolent society
Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived More to myself. Two winters may be passed Without a separate notice: many books Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously perused, But with no settled plan. I was detached Internally from academic cares;
Yet independent study seemed a course Of hardy disobedience toward friends And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind. This spurious virtue, rather let it bear A name it now deserves, this cowardice, Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love Of freedom which encouraged me to turn From regulations even of my own,
As from restraints and bonds.
Who knows what thus may have been gained, both
And at a later season, or preserved;
What love of nature, what original strength
Of contemplation, what intuitive truths, The deepest and the best, what keen research, Unbiased, unbewildered, and unawed?
The Poet's soul was with me at that time; Sweet meditations, the still overflow Of present happiness, while future years Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams, No few of which have since been realized; And some remain, hopes for my future life.
Four years and thirty, told this very week, Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me
Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills, Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days Which also first emboldened me to trust With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched By such a daring thought, that I might leave Some monument behind me which pure hearts Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness, Maintained even by the very name and thought Of printed books and authorship, began
To melt away; and further, the dread awe Of mighty names was softened down and seemed Approachable, admitting fellowship
Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now, Though not familiarly, my mind put on, Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.
All winter long, whenever free to choose, Did I by night frequent the College groves And tributary walks; the last, and oft The only one, who had been lingering there Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, Rang, with its blunt, unceremonious voice, Inexorable summons! Lofty elms, Inviting shades of opportune recess, Bestowed composure on a neighborhood Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree,
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed, Grew there; an ash which Winter for himself Decked as in pride, and with outlandish grace: Up from the ground, and almost to the top, The trunk and every master branch were green With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds That hung in yellow tassels, while the air Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood Foot-bound, uplooking at this lovely tree Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance May never tread; but scarcely Spenser's self Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, Or could more bright appearance create Of human forms with superhuman powers, Than I beheld, loitering on calm, clear nights, Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.
On the vague reading of a truant youth 'T were idle to descant. My inner judgment Not seldom differed from my taste in books, As if it appertained to another mind,
And yet the books which then I valued most Are dearest to me now; for having scanned, Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed A standard, often usefully applied,
Even when unconsciously, to things removed From a familiar sympathy. — In fine,
I was a better judge of thoughts than words, Misled in estimating words, not only By common inexperience of youth,
But by the trade in classic niceties,
The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase From languages that want the living voice To carry meaning to the natural heart; To tell us what is passion, what is truth, What reason, what simplicity and sense.
Yet may we not entirely overlook The pleasure gathered from the rudiments Of geometric science. Though advanced In these inquiries, with regret I speak, No farther than the threshold, there I found Both elevation and composed delight:
With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance pleased With its own struggles, did I meditate On the relation those abstractions bear To Nature's laws, and by what process led, Those immaterial agents bowed their heads Duly to serve the mind of earth-born man; From star to star, from kindred sphere to sphere, From system on to system without end.
More frequently from the same source I drew A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense
Of permanent and universal sway,
And paramount belief; there, recognized A type, for finite natures, of the one
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