BOOK SECOND.
SCHOOL-TIME--continued ...
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though 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 befal By nourishment that came unsought; for still From week to week, from month to month, we lived A round of tumult.

Duly were our games Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed: 10 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, 15 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 20 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 25 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, 30 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 35 Or centre of these sports; [A] 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, 40 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 45 Assiduous, through the length of sixty years.
We ran a boisterous course; the year span round With giddy motion.