The Prelude. William Wordsworth

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       No chair remained before the doors; the bench

       And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep

       The labourer, and the old man who had sate

       A later lingerer; yet the revelry

       Continued and the loud uproar: at last,

       ​When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars

       Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went,

       Feverish with weary joints and beating minds.

       Ah! is there one who ever has been young,

       Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride

       Of intellect and virtue's self-esteem?

       One is there, though the wisest and the best

       Of all mankind, who covets not at times

       Union that cannot be;—who would not give,

       If so he might, to duty and to truth

       The eagerness of infantine desire?

       A tranquillising spirit presses now

       On my corporeal frame, so wide appears

       The vacancy between me and those days

       Which yet have such self-presence in my mind,

       That, musing on them, often do I seem

       Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself

       And of some other Being. A rude mass

       Of native rock, left midway in the square

       Of our small market village, was the goal

       Or centre of these sports; and when, returned

       After long absence, thither I repaired,

       Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place

       A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground

       That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream,

       ​And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! I know

       That more than one of you will think with me

       Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame

       From whom the stone was named, who there had sate,

       And watched her table with its huckster's wares

       Assiduous, through the length of sixty years.

      We ran a boisterous course; the year span round

       With giddy motion. But the time approached

       That brought with it a regular desire

       For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms

       Of Nature were collaterally attached

       To every scheme of holiday delight

       And every boyish sport, less grateful else

       And languidly pursued.

      When summer came,

       Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays,

       To sweep along the plain of Windermere

       With rival oars; and the selected bourne

       Was now an Island musical with birds

       That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle

       Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, sown

       With lilies of the valley like a field;

       And now a third small Island, where survived

       In solitude the ruins of a shrine

       ​Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served

       Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race

       So ended, disappointment could be none,

       Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:

       We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,

       Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength,

       And the vain-glory of superior skill,

       Were tempered; thus was gradually produced

       A quiet independence of the heart;

       And to my Friend who knows me I may add,

       Fearless of blame, that hence for future days

       Ensued a diffidence and modesty,

       And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,

       The self-sufficing power of Solitude.

      Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare!

       More than we wished we knew the blessing then

       Of vigorous hunger—hence corporeal strength

       Unsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude

       A little weekly stipend, and we lived

       Through three divisions of the quartered year

       In penniless poverty. But now to school

       From the half-yearly holidays returned,

       We came with weightier purses, that sufficed

       To furnish treats more costly than the Dame

       ​Of the old grey stone, from her scant board, supplied.

       Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground,

       Or in the woods, or by a river side

       Or shady fountains, while among the leaves

       Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day sun

       Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy.

       Nor is my aim neglected if I tell

       How sometimes, in the length of those half-years,

       We from our funds drew largely;—proud to curb,

       And eager to spur on, the galloping steed;

       And with the courteous inn-keeper, whose stud

       Supplied our want, we haply might employ

       Sly subterfuge, if the adventure's bound

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