BOOK SECOND. SCHOOL-TIME (CONTINUED). THUS far, O Friend! have we, though On my corporeal frame, so wide appear leaving much Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace The simple ways in which my childhood walked ; Those chiefly that first led me to the love Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet 5 Was in its birth, sustained as might befall By nourishment that came unsought; for still The vacancy between me and those days mind, That, musing on them, often do I seen After long absence, thither I repaired. From week to week, from month to Gone was the old grey stone, and in month, we lived place A round of tumult. Duly were our games A smart Assembly-room usurped Prolonged in summer till the day-light ground That had been ours. There let the fid scream, And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! know That more than one of you will th Of those soft starry nights, and that From whom the stone was named, And watched her table with its hucks wares Assiduous, through the length of s years. We ran a boisterous course; the ye span round With giddy motion. But the time proached That brought with it a regular desire Of Nature were collaterally attached Our pastime was, on bright half-holi- Of the old grey stone, from her scant days, 55 To sweep along the plain of Windermere board, supplied. Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground, 90 Or in the woods, or by a river's side Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day - f vigorous hunger hence corporeal strength 80 nsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude little weekly stipend, and we lived towers ΠΙΟ In that sequestered valley may be seen, hrough three divisions of the quartered The safeguard for repose and quietness. year a penniless poverty. But now to school 86 o furnish treats more costly than the Dame Our steeds remounted and the summons given, 115 With whip and spur we through the chauntry flew In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight, And the stone-abbot, and that single More worthy of a poet's love, a hut, Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore wren Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave Of the old church, that-though from Internal breezes, sobbings of the place So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible 125 Sang to herself, that there I could have made there My dwelling-place, and lived for ever Upon a slope surmounted by a plain Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood To hear such music. Through the walls we flew And down the valley, and, a circuit made In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth 130 We scampered homewards. Oh, ye rocks and streams, And that still spirit shed from evening air! Even in this joyous time I sometimes ! A grove, with gleams of water through the trees And over the tree-tops; nor did we want ! cream. There, while through half an afternoon we played On the smooth platform, whether sk prevailed Or happy blunder triumphed, bursts of glee Made all the mountains ring. But, er nightfall, When in our pinnace we returned leisure Over the shadowy lake, and to the beach Of some small island steered our cours with one, Midway on long Winander's eastern The Minstrel of the Troop, and left h To love the sun; a boy I loved the sun, Not as our glory and our absolute boast, His beauty on the morning hills, had That we perceive, and not that we have Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy. And, from like feelings, humble though intense, To patriotic and domestic love Analogous, the moon to me was dear; 190 As of a single independent thing. standing to gaze upon her while she If each most obvious and particular hung Midway between the hills, as if she knew to other region, but belonged to thee, 195 Tea, appertained by a peculiar right o thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale! Those incidental charms which first Iy heart to rural objects, day by day is intellect by geometric rules, plit like a province into round and For him, in one dear Presence, there square? 205 Tho knows the individual hour in which is habits were first sown, even as a seed? ho that shall point as with a wand and exists ore deeply read in thy own thoughts; Is there a flower, to which he points with to thee ience appears but what in truth she is, hand Too weak to gather it, already love 245 Drawn from love's purest earthly fount Of knowledge, when all knowledge delight, for him Hath beautified that flower; already And sorrow is not there! The seasons shades came, Of possible sublimity, whereto By its own spirit! All that I beheld |