(06) Book Sixth - Cambridge and the Alps

Book Sixth Cambridge and the Alps

THE leaves were yellow when to Furness Fells,
The haunt of shepherds, and to cottage life
I bade adieu, and, one among the flock
Who by that season are convened, like birds
Trooping together at the fowler's lure, 5
Went back to Granta's cloisters—not so fond
Or eager, though as gay and undepressed
In spirit, as when I thence had taken flight
A few short months before. I turned my face
Without repining from the mountain pomp 10
Of autumn and its beauty (entered in
With calmer lakes and louder streams); and you,
Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,
You and your not unwelcome days of mirth
I quitted, and your nights of revelry, 15
And in my own unlovely cell sate down
In lightsome mood—such privilege has youth,
That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.

We need not linger o'er the ensuing time,
But let me add at once that now, the bonds 20
Of indolent and vague society
Relaxing in their hold, I lived henceforth
More to myself, read more, reflected more,
Felt more, and settled daily into habits
More promising. Two winters may be passed 25
Without a separate notice; many books
Were read in process of this time—devoured,
Tasted or skimmed, or studiously perused—

Yet with no settled plan. I was detached
Internally from academic cares, 30
From every hope of prowess and reward,
And wished to be a lodger in that house
Of letters, and no more—and should have been
Even such, but for some personal concerns
That hung about me in my own despite 35
Perpetually, no heavy weight, but still
A baffling and a hindrance, a controul
Which made the thought of planning for myself
A course of independent study seem
An act of disobedience towards them 40
Who loved me, proud rebellion and unkind.
This bastard virtue—rather let it have
A name it more deserves, this cowardise—
Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love
Of freedom planted in me from the very first, 45
And indolence, by force of which I turned
From regulations even of my own
As from restraints and bonds. And who can tell,
Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then
And at a later season, or preserved— 50
What love of Nature, what original strength
Of contemplation, what intuitive truths,
The deepest and the best, and what research
Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?

The poet's soul was with me at that time, 55
Sweet meditations, the still overflow
Of happiness and truth. A thousand hopes
Were mine, a thousand tender dreams, of which
No few have since been realized, and some
Do yet remain, hopes for my future life. 60
Four years and thirty, told this very week,
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
And yet the morning gladness is not gone
Which then was in my mind. Those were the days
Which also first encouraged me to trust 65

With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched
With such a daring thought, that I might leave
Some monument behind me which pure hearts
Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness,
Uphelp even by the very name and thought 70
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, 75
Though not familiarly, my mind put on;
I loved and I enjoyed—that was my chief
And ruling business, happy in the strength
And loveliness of imagery and thought.

All winter long, whenever free to take 80
My choice, did I at nights frequent our 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, 85
Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
Inexorable summons. Lofty elms,
Inviting shades of opportune recess,
Did give composure to a neighbourhood
Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree 90
There was, no doubt yet standing there, an ash,
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed:
Up from the ground and almost to the top
The trunk and master branches everywhere
Were green with ivy, and the lightsome twigs 95
And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
That hung in yellow tassels and festoons,
Moving or still—a favorite trimmed out
By Winter for himself, as if in pride,
And with outlandish grace. Oft have I stood 100
Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere

Of magic fiction, verse of mine perhaps
May never tread, but scarcely Spenser's self
Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, 105
More bright appearances could scarcely see
Of human forms and superhuman powers,
Than I beheld standing on winter nights
Alone beneath this fairy work of earth.

'Twould be a waste of labour to detail 110
The rambling studies of a truant youth—
Which further may be easily divined,
What, and what kind they were. My inner knowledge
(This barely will I note) was oft in depth
And delicacy like another mind, 115
Sequestered from my outward taste in books—
And yet the books which then I loved the most
Are dearest to me now; for, being versed
In living Nature, I had there a guide
Which opened frequently my eyes, else shut, 120
A standard which was usefully applied,
Even when unconsciously, to other things
Which less I understood. In general terms,
I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
Misled as to these latter not alone 125
By common inexperience of youth,
But by the trade in classic niceties,
Delusion to young scholars incident—
And old ones also—by that overprized
And dangerous craft of picking phrases out 130
From languages that want the living voice
To make of them a nature to the heart,
To tell us what is passion,
what is truth, What reason,
what simplicity and sense.

Yet must I not entirely overlook 135
The pleasure gathered from the elements
Of geometric science. I had stepped
In these inquiries but a little way,

No farther than the threshold—with regret
Sincere I mention this—but there I found 140
Enough to exalt, to chear me and compose.
With Indian awe and wonder, ignorance
Which even was cherished, did I meditate
Upon the alliance of those simple, pure
Proportions and relations, with the frame 145
And laws of Nature—how they could become
Herein a leader to the human mind—
And made endeavours frequent to detect
The process by dark guesses of my own.
Yet from this source more frequently I drew 150
A pleasure calm and deeper, a still sense
Of permanent and universal sway
And paramount endowment in the mind,
An image not unworthy of the one
Surpassing life, which—out of space and time, 155
Nor touched by welterings of passion—is,
And hath the name of, God. Transcendent peace
And silence did await upon these thoughts
That were a frequent comfort to my youth.

And as I have read of one by shipwreck thrown 160
With fellow sufferers whom the waves had spared
Upon a region uninhabited,
An island of the deep, who having brought
To land a single volume and no more—
A treatise of geometry—was used, 165
Although of food and clothing destitute,
And beyond common wretchedness depressed,
To part from company and take this book,
Then first a self-taught pupil in those truths,
To spots remote and corners of the isle 170
By the seaside, and draw his diagrams
With a long stick upon the sand, and thus
Did oft beguile his sorrow, and almost
Forget his feeling: even so—if things
Producing like effect from outward cause 175

So different may rightly be compared—
So was it with me then, and so will be
With poets ever. Mighty is the charm
Of those abstractions to a mind beset
With images, and haunted by itself, 180
And specially delightful unto me
Was that clear synthesis built up aloft
So gracefully, even then when it appeared
No more than as a plaything, or a toy
Embodied to the sense—not what it is 185
In verity, an independent world
Created out of pure intelligence.

Such dispositions then were mine, almost
Through grace of heaven and inborn tenderness.
And not to leave the picture of that time 190
Imperfect, with these habits I must rank
A melancholy, from humours of the blood
In part, and partly taken up, that loved
A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds,
The twilight more than dawn, autumn than spring— 195
A treasured and luxurious gloom of choice
And inclination mainly, and the mere
Redundancy of youth's contentedness.
Add unto this a multitude of hours
Pilfered away by what the bard who sang 200
Of the enchanter Indolence hath called
'Good-natured lounging', and behold a map
Of my collegiate life: far less intense
Than duty called for, or, without regard
To duty, might have sprung up of itself 205
By change of accidents; or even—to speak
Without unkindness—in another place.

In summer among distant nooks I roved—
Dovedale, or Yorkshire dales, or through bye-tracts
Of my own native region—and was blest 210
Between those sundry wanderings with a joy

Above all joys, that seemed another morn
Risen on mid-noon: the presence, friend, I mean
Of that sole sister, she who hath been long
Thy treasure also, thy true friend and mine, 215
Now after separation desolate
Restored to me—such absence that she seemed
A gift then first bestowed. The gentle banks
Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song,
And that monastic castle, on a flat, 220
Low-standing by the margin of the stream,
A mansion not unvisited of old
By Sidney, where, in sight of our
Helvellyn, Some snatches he might pen for aught we know
Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love 225
Inspired—that river and that mouldering dome
Have seen us sit in many a summer hour,
My sister and myself, when, having climbed
In danger through some window's open space,
We looked abroad, or on the turret's head 230
Lay listening to the wild-flowers and the grass
As they gave out their whispers to the wind.
Another maid there was, who also breathed
A gladness o'er that season, then to me
By her exulting outside look of youth 235
And placid under-countenance first endeared—
That other spirit, Coleridge, who is now
So near to us, that meek confiding heart,
So reverenced by us both. O'er paths and fields
In all that neighbourhood, through narrow lanes 240
Of eglantine, and through the shady woods,
And o'er the Border Beacon and the waste
Of naked pools and common crags that lay
Exposed on the bare fell, was scattered love—
A spirit of pleasure, and youth's golden gleam. 245
O friend, we had not seen thee at that time,
And yet a power is on me and a strong
Confusion, and I seem to plant thee there.
Far art thou wandered now in search of health,

And milder breezes—melancholy lot— 250
But thou art with us, with us in the past,
The present, with us in the times to come.
There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair,
No languor, no dejection, no dismay,
No absence scarcely can there be, for those 255
Who love as we do. Speed thee well! divide
Thy pleasure with us; thy returning strength,
Receive it daily as a joy of ours;
Share with us thy fresh spirits, whether gift
Of gales Etesian or of loving thoughts. 260

I too have been a wanderer, but, alas,
How different is the fate of different men,
Though twins almost in genius and in mind.
Unknown unto each other, yea, and breathing
As if in different elements, we were framed 265
To bend at last to the same discipline,
Predestined, if two beings ever were,
To seek the same delights, and have one health,
One happiness. Throughout this narrative,
Else sooner ended, I have known full well 270
For whom I thus record the birth and growth
Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,
And joyous loves that hallow innocent days
Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,
And groves, I speak to thee, my friend—to thee 275
Who, yet a liveried schoolboy in the depths
Of the huge city, on the leaded roof
Of that wide edifice, thy home and school,
Wast used to lie and gaze upon the clouds
Moving in heaven, or haply, tired of this, 280
To shut thine eyes and by internal light
See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream
Far distant—thus beheld from year to year
Of thy long exile. Nor could I forget
In this late portion of my argument 285
That scarcely had I finally resigned

My rights among those academic bowers
When thou wert thither guided. From the heart
Of London, and from cloisters there, thou cam'st
And didst sit down in temperance and peace, 290
A rigorous student. What a stormy course
Then followed—oh, it is a pang that calls
For utterance, to think how small a change
Of circumstances might to thee have spared
A world of pain, ripened ten thousand hopes 295
For ever withered. Through this retrospect
Of my own college life I still have had
Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place
Present before my eyes, have played with times
(I speak of private business of the thought) 300
And accidents as children do with cards,
Or as a man, who, when his house is built,
A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still
In impotence of mind by his fireside
Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought 305
Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence,
And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,
Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse
Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms
Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out 310
From things well-matched, or ill, and words for things—
The self-created sustenance of a mind
Debarred from Nature's living images,
Compelled to be a life unto itself,
And unrelentingly possessed by thirst 315
Of greatness, love, and beauty. Not alone,
Ah, surely not in singleness of heart
Should I have seen the light of evening fade
Upon the silent Cam, if we had met,
Even at that early time: I needs must hope, 320
Must feel, must trust, that my maturer age
And temperature less willing to be moved,
My calmer habits, and more steady voice,
Would with an influence benign have soothed

Or chased away the airy wretchedness 325
That battened on thy youth. But thou hast trod,
In watchful meditation thou hast trod,
A march of glory, which doth put to shame
These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else
Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought 330
That ever harboured in the breast of man.

A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, and now to these
My poem leads me with an easier mind.
The employments of three winters when I wore 335
A student's gown have been already told,
Or shadowed forth as far as there is need—
When the third summer brought its liberty
A fellow student and myself, he too
A mountaineer, together sallied forth, 340
And, staff in hand on foot pursued our way
Towards the distant Alps. An open slight
Of college cares and study was the scheme,
Nor entertained without concern for those
To whom my worldly interests were dear, 345
But Nature then was sovereign in my heart,
And mighty forms seizing a youthful fancy
Had given a charter to irregular hopes.
In any age, without an impulse sent
From work of nations and their goings-on, 350
I should have been possessed by like desire;
But 'twas a time when Europe was rejoiced,
France standing on the top of golden hours,
And human nature seeming born again.
Bound, as I said, to the Alps, it was our lot 355
To land at Calais on the very eve
Of that great federal day; and there we saw,
In a mean city and among a few,
How bright a face is worn when joy of one
Is joy of tens of millions. Southward thence 360
We took our way, direct through hamlets, towns,

Gaudy with reliques of that festival,
Flowers left to wither on triumphal arcs
And window-garlands. On the public roads—
And once three days successively through paths 365
By which our toilsome journey was abridged—
Among sequestered villages we walked
And found benevolence and blessedness
Spread like a fragrance everywhere, like spring
That leaves no corner of the land untouched. 370
Where elms for many and many a league in files,
With their thin umbrage, on the stately roads
Of that great kingdom rustled o'er our heads,
For ever near us as we paced along,
'Twas sweet at such a time—with such delights 375
On every side, in prime of youthful strength—
To feed a poet's tender melancholy
And fond conceit of sadness, to the noise
And gentle undulation which they made.
Unhoused beneath the evening star we saw 380
Dances of liberty, and, in late hours
Of darkness, dances in the open air.
Among the vine-clad hills of Burgundy,
Upon the bosom of the gentle Soane
We glided forward with the flowing stream: 385
Swift Rhone, thou wert the wings on which we cut
Between they lofty rocks. Enchanting show
Those woods and farms and orchards did present,
And single cottages and lurking towns—
Reach after reach, procession without end, 390
Of deep and stately vales. A lonely pair
Of Englishmen we were, and sailed along
Clustered together with a merry crowd
Of those emancipated, with a host
Of travellers, chiefly delegates returning 395
From the great spousals newly solemnized
At their chief city, in the sight of Heaven.
Like bees they swarmed, gaudy and gay as bees;
Some vapoured in the unruliness of joy,

And flourished with their swords as if to fight 400
The saucy air. In this blithe company
We landed, took with them our evening meal,
Guests welcome almost as the angels were
To Abraham of old. The supper done,
With flowing cups elate and happy thoughts 405
We rose at signal given, and formed a ring,
And hand in hand danced round and round the board;
All hearts were open, every tongue was loud
With amity and glee. We bore a name
Honoured in France, the name of Englishmen, 410
And hospitably did they give us hail
As their forerunners in a glorious course;
And round and round the board they danced again.
With this same throng our voyage we pursued
At early dawn; the monastery bells 415
Made a sweet jingling in our youthful ears—
The rapid river flowing without noise—
And every spire we saw among the rocks
Spake with a sense of peace, at intervals
Touching the heart amid the boisterous crew 420
With which we were environed. Having parted
From this glad rout, the convent of Chartreuse
Received us two days afterwards, and there
We rested in an awful solitude—
Thence onward to the country of the Swiss. 425

'Tis not my present purpose to retrace
That variegated journey step by step;
A march it was of military speed,
And earth did change her images and forms 430
Before us fast as clouds are changed in heaven.
Day after day, up early and down late,
From vale to vale, from hill to hill we went,
From province on to province did we pass,
Keen hunters in a chace of fourteen weeks— 435
Eager as birds of prey, or as a ship
Upon the stretch when winds are blowing fair.

Sweet coverts did we cross of pastoral life,
Enticing vallies—greeted them, and left
Too soon, while yet the very flash and gleam 440
Of salutation were not passed away.
Oh, sorrow for the youth who could have seen
Unchastened, unsubdued, unawed, unraised
To patriarchal dignity of mind
And pure simplicity of wish and will, 445
Those sanctified abodes of peaceful man.
My heart leaped up when first I did look down
On that which was first seen of those deep haunts,
A green recess, an aboriginal vale,
Quiet, and lorded over and possessed 450
By naked huts, wood-built, and sown like tents
Or Indian cabins over the fresh lawns
And by the river-side.

That day we first
Beheld the summit of Mount Blanc, and grieved 455
To have a soulless image on the eye
Which had usurped upon a living thought
That never more could be. The wondrous Vale
Of Chamouny did, on the following dawn,
With its dumb cataracts and streams of ice— 460
A motionless array of mighty waves,
Five rivers broad and vast—make rich amends,
And reconciled us to realities.
There small birds warble from the leafy trees,
The eagle soareth in the element, 465
There doth the reaper bind the yellow sheaf,
The maiden spread the haycock in the sun,
While Winter like a tame`d lion walks,
Descending from the mountain to make sport
Among the cottages by beds of flowers. 470

Whate'er in this wide circuit we beheld
Or heard was fitted to our unripe state
Of intellect and heart. By simple strains

Of feeling, the pure breath of real life, 475
We were not left untouched. With such a book
Before our eyes we could not chuse but read
A frequent lesson of sound tenderness,
The universal reason of mankind,
The truth of young and old. Nor, side by side 480
Pacing, two brother pilgrims, or alone
Each with his humour, could we fail to abound—
Craft this which hath been hinted at before—
In dreams and fictions pensively composed:
Dejection taken up for pleasure's sake, 485
And gilded sympathies, the willow wreath,
Even among those solitudes sublime,
And sober posies of funereal flowers,
Culled from the gardens of the Lady Sorrow,
Did sweeten many a meditative hour. 490

Yet still in me, mingling with these delights,
Was something of stern mood, an under-thirst
Of vigor, never utterly asleep.
Far different dejection once was mine—
A deep and genuine sadness then I felt— 495
The circumstances I will here relate
Even as they were. Upturning with a band
Of travellers, from the Valais we had clomb
Along the road that leads to Italy;
A length of hours, making of these our guides, 500
Did we advance, and, having reached an inn
Among the mountains, we together ate
Our noon's repast, from which the travellers rose
Leaving us at the board. Erelong we followed,
Descending by the beaten road that led 505
Right to a rivulet's edge, and there broke off;
The only track now visible was one
Upon the further side, right opposite,
And up a lofty mountain. This we took,
After a little scruple and short pause, 510
And climbed with eagerness—though not, at length,

Without surprize and some anxiety
On finding that we did not overtake
Our comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,
While every moment now encreased our doubts, 515
A peasant met us, and from him we learned
That to the place which had perplexed us first
We must descend, and there should find the road
Which in the stony channel of the stream
Lay a few steps, and then along its banks— 520
And further, that thenceforward all our course
Was downwards with the current of that stream.
Hard of belief, we questioned him again,
And all the answers which the man returned
To our inquiries, in their sense and substance 525
Translated by the feelings which we had,
Ended in this—that we had crossed the Alps.

Imagination!—lifting up itself
Before the eye and progress of my song
Like an unfathered vapour, here that power, 530
In all the might of its endowments, came
Athwart me. I was lost as in a cloud,
Halted without a struggle to break through,
And now, recovering, to my soul I say
'I recognise thy glory'. In such strength 535
Of usurpation, in such visitings
Of awful promise, when the light of sense
Goes out in flashes that have shewn to us
The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
There harbours whether we be young or old. 540
Our destiny, our nature, and our home, Is
with infinitude—and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be. 545
The mind beneath such banners militant
Thinks not of spoils or trophies, nor of aught
That may attest its prowess, blest in thoughts

That are their own perfection and reward—
Strong in itself, and in the access of joy 550
Which hides in like the overflowing Nile.

The dull and heavy slackening which ensued
Upon those tidings by the peasant given
Was soon dislodged; downwards we hurried fast,
And entered with the road which we had missed 555
Into a narrow chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow step. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, 560
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And everywhere along the hollow rent
Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears— 565
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them—the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light, 570
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great apocalypse,
The types and symbols of eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end. 575

That night our lodging was an alpine house,
An inn, or hospital (as they are named),
Standing in that same valley by itself,
And close upon the confluence of two streams—
A dreary mansion, large beyond all need, 580
With high and spacious rooms, deafened and stunned
By noise of waters, making innocent sleep
Lie melancholy among weary bones.
Uprisen betimes, our journey we renewed,

Led by the stream, ere noon-day magnified 585
Into a lordly river, broad and deep,
Dimpling along in silent majesty
With mountains for its neighbours, and in view
Of distant mountains and their snowy tops,
And thus proceeding to Locarno's lake, 590
Fit resting-place for such a visitant.
Locarno, spreading out in width like heaven,
And Como thou—a treasure by the earth
Kept to itself, a darling bosomed up
In Abyssinian privacy—I spake 595
Of thee, thy chestnut woods and garden plots
Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids,
Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines
Winding from house to house, from town to town
(Sole link that binds them to each other), walks 600
League after league, and cloistral avenues
Where silence is if music be not there:
While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
Through fond ambition of my heart I told
Your praises, nor can I approach you now 605
Ungreeted by a more melodious song,
Where tones of learned art and Nature mixed
May frame enduring language.
Like a breeze Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
In motion without pause; but ye have left 610
Your beauty with me, an impassioned sight
Of colours and of forms, whose power is sweet
And gracious, almost, might I dare to say,
As virtue is, or goodness—sweet as love,
Or the remembrance of a noble deed, 615
Or gentlest visitations of pure thought
When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked
Religiously in silent blessedness—
Sweet as this last itself, for such it is.

Through those delightful pathways we advanced 620
Two days, and still in presence of the lake,

Which winding up among the Alps now changed
Slowly its lovely countenance and put on
A sterner character. The second night,
In eagerness, and by report misled 625
Of those Italian clocks that speak the time
In fashion different from ours, we rose
By moonshine, doubting not that day was near,
And that, meanwhile, coasting the water's edge
As hitherto, and with as plain a track 630
To be our guide, we might behold the scene
In its most deep repose. We left the town
Of Gravedona with this hope, but soon
Were lost, bewildered among woods immense,
Where, having wandered for a while, we stopped 635
And on a rock sate down to wait for day.
An open place it was and overlooked
From high the sullen water underneath,
On which a dull red image of the moon
Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form 640
Like an uneasy snake. Long time we sate,
For scarcely more than one hour of the night—
Such was our error—had been gone when we
Renewed our journey. On the rock we lay
And wished to sleep, but could not for the stings 645
Of insects, which with noise like that of noon
Filled all the woods. The cry of unknown birds,
the mountains—more by darkness visible
And their own size, than any outward light—
The breathless wilderness of clouds, the clock 650
That told with unintelligible voice
The widely parted hours, the noise of streams,
And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand
Which did not leave us free from personal fear,
And lastly, the withdrawing moon that set 655
Before us while she still was high in heaven—
These were our food, and such a summer night
Did to that pair of golden days succeed,
With now and then a doze and snatch of sleep,
On Como's banks, the same delicious lake. 660

But here I must break off, and quit at once,
Though loth, the record of these wanderings,
A theme which may seduce me else beyond
All reasonable bounds. Let this alone
Be mentioned as a parting word, that not 665
In hollow exultation, dealing forth
Hyperboles of praise comparative;
Not rich one moment to be poor for ever;
Not prostrate, overborne—as if the mind
Itself were nothing, a mean pensioner 670
On outward forms—did we in presence stand
Of that magnificent region. On the front
Of this whole song is written that my heart
Must, in such temple, needs have offered up
A different worship. Finally, whate'er 675
I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream
That flowed into a kindred stream, a gale
That helped me forwards, did administer
To grandeur and to tenderness—to the one
Directly, but to tender thoughts by means 680
Less often instantaneous in effect—
Conducted me to these along a path
Which, in the main, was more circuitous.

Oh most beloved friend, a glorious time,
A happy time that was. Triumphant looks 685
Were then the common language of all eyes:
As if awakened from sleep, the nations hailed
Their great expectancy; the fife of war
Was then a spirit-stirring sound indeed,
A blackbird's whistle in a vernal grove. 690
We left the Swiss exulting in the fate
Of their neighbours, and, when shortening fast
Our pilgrimage—nor distant far from home—
We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret
For battle in the cause of Liberty. 695

A stripling, scarcely of the household then
Of social life, I looked upon these things
As from a distance—heard, and saw, and felt,
Was touched but with no intimate concern—
I seemed to move among them as a bird 700
Moves through the air, or as a fish pursues
Its business in its proper element.
I needed not that joy, I did not need
Such help: the ever-living universe
And independent spirit of pure youth 705
Were with me at that season, and delight
Was in all places spread around my steps
As constant as the grass upon the fields.