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.  But the time approached
  That brought with it a regular desire
  For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms 50
  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,