Should reverence.  The instinctive humbleness,
  Maintained even by the very name and thought
  Of printed books and authorship, began
  To melt away; and further, the dread awe 60
  Of mighty names was softened down and seemed
  Approachable, admitting fellowship
  Of modest sympathy.  Such aspect now,
  Though not familiarly, my mind put on,
  Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy. 65

    All winter long, whenever free to choose,
  Did I by night frequent the College 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, 70
  A punctual follower on the stroke of nine,
  Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice,
  Inexorable summons!  Lofty elms,
  Inviting shades of opportune recess,
  Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood 75
  Unpeaceful in itself.  A single tree
  With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed,
  Grew there; [E] an ash which Winter for himself
  Decked out with pride, and with outlandish grace: 
  Up from the ground, and almost to the top, 80
  The trunk and every master branch were green
  With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs
  And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
  That hung in yellow tassels, while the air
  Stirred them, not voiceless.  Often have I stood 85
  Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree
  Beneath a frosty moon.  The hemisphere
  Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance
  May never tread; but scarcely Spenser’s self
  Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, 90
  Or could more bright appearances create
  Of human forms with superhuman powers,
  Than I beheld loitering on calm clear nights
  Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.

    On the vague reading of a truant youth [F] 95
  ’Twere idle to descant.  My inner judgment
  Not seldom differed from my taste in books. 
  As if it appertained to another mind,
  And yet the books which then I valued most
  Are dearest to me now; for, having scanned, 100
  Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms
  Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed
  A standard, often usefully applied,
  Even when unconsciously, to things removed
  From a familiar sympathy.—­In fine, 105
  I was a better judge of thoughts than words,
  Misled in estimating words, not only
  By common inexperience of youth,
  But by the trade in classic niceties,
  The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase 110
  From languages that want the living voice
  To carry meaning to the natural heart;
  To tell us what is passion, what is truth,
  What reason, what simplicity and sense.