the heart
  Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,
  And didst sit down in temperance and peace, 280
  A rigorous student. [a] What a stormy course
  Then followed. [b] Oh! it is a pang that calls
  For utterance, to think what easy change
  Of circumstances might to thee have spared
  A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes, 285
  For ever withered.  Through this retrospect
  Of my collegiate life I still have had
  Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place
  Present before my eyes, have played with times
  And accidents as children do with cards, 290
  Or as a man, who, when his house is built,
  A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,
  As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,
  Rebuild it to his liking.  I have thought
  Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence, 295
  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
  From things well-matched or ill, and words for things, 300
  The self-created sustenance of a mind
  Debarred from Nature’s living images,
  Compelled to be a life unto herself,
  And unrelentingly possessed by thirst
  Of greatness, love, and beauty.  Not alone, 305
  Ah! surely not in singleness of heart
  Should I have seen the light of evening fade
  From smooth Cam’s silent waters:  had we met,
  Even at that early time, needs must I trust
  In the belief, that my maturer age, 310
  My calmer habits, and more steady voice,
  Would with an influence benign have soothed,
  Or chased away, the airy wretchedness
  That battened on thy youth.  But thou hast trod
  A march of glory, which doth put to shame 315
  These vain regrets; health suffers in thee, else
  Such grief for thee would be the weakest thought
  That ever harboured in the breast of man.

    A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
  On wanderings of my own, that now embraced 320
  With livelier hope a region wider far.

    When the third summer freed us from restraint,
  A youthful friend, he too a mountaineer, [c]
  Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff,
  And sallying forth, we journeyed side by side, 325
  Bound to the distant Alps. [d] A hardy slight
  Did this unprecedented course imply
  Of college studies and their set rewards;
  Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me
  Without uneasy forethought of the pain, 330
  The censures, and ill-omening of those
  To whom my worldly interests were dear. 
  But Nature then was sovereign in my mind,