Prelude, book i.

Wordsworth fished and bird-nested, climbing perilous crags and slippery rocks to find rare eggs.  In summer he and his companions rowed upon the lake, in winter they skated.

“And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons:  happy time It was indeed for all of us—­for me A time of rapture!  Clear and loud The village clock tolled six,—­I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.  All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games. . . . . . .  We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours; Nor saw a band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod."*

Prelude, book i.

Yet among all this noisy boyish fun and laughter, Wordsworth’s strange, keen love of nature took root and grew.  At times he says—­

            “Even then I felt
    Gleams like the flashing of a shield:—­the earth
    And common face of nature spake to me
    Rememberable things."*

Prelude, book i.

He read, too, what he liked, spending many happy hours over Gulliver’s Travels, and the Tale of a Tub, Don Quixote, and the Arabian Nights.

While Wordsworth was still at school his father died.  His uncles then took charge of him, and after he left school sent him to Cambridge.  Wordsworth did nothing great at college.  He took his degree without honors, and left Cambridge still undecided what his career in life was to be.  He did not feel himself good enough for the Church.  He did not care for law, but rather liked the idea of being a soldier.  That idea, however, he also gave up, and for a time he drifted.

In those days one of the world’s great dramas was being enacted.  The French Revolution had begun.  With the great struggle the poet’s heart was stirred, his imagination fired.  It seemed to him that a new dawn of freedom and joy and peace was breaking on the world, and “France lured him forth.”  He crossed the Channel, and for two years he lived through all the storm and stress of the Revolution.  He might have ended his life in the fearful Reign of Terror which was coming on, had not his friends in England called him home.  He left France full of pity, and sorrow, and disappointment, for no reign of peace had come, and the desire for Liberty had been swallowed up in the desire for Empire.

In spite of his years of travel, in spite of the fact that it was necessary for him to earn his living, Wordsworth was still unsettled as to what his work in life was to be, when a friend dying left him nine hundred pounds.  With Wordworth’s simple tastes this sum was enough to live upon for several years, so he asked his dearly loved sister Dorothy to make her home with him, and together they settled down to a simple cottage life in Dorsetshire.  It was a happy thing for Wordsworth that he found such a comrade in his sister.  From first to last she was his friend and helper, cheering and soothing him when need be—­