Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
    The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. 
    I do remember well the hour which burst
    My spirit’s sleep:  a fresh May-dawn it was,
    When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
    And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
    From the near school-room, voices, that, alas! 
    Were but one echo from a world of woes—­
    The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

    And then I clasped my hands and looked around—­
    —­But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
    Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground—­
    So without shame I spake:—­“I will be wise,
    And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
    Such power, for I grow weary to behold
    The selfish and the strong still tyrannize
    Without reproach or check.”  I then controlled
    My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.

    And from that hour did I with earnest thought
    Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore,
    Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
    I cared to learn, but from that secret store
    Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
    It might walk forth to war among mankind. 
    Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more
    Within me, till there came upon my mind
    A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.

The second is a fragment on friendship preserved by Hogg.  After defining that kind of passionate attachment which often precedes love in fervent natures, he proceeds:  “I remember forming an attachment of this kind at school.  I cannot recall to my memory the precise epoch at which this took pace; but I imagine it must have been at the age of eleven or twelve.  The object of these sentiments was a boy about my own age, of a character eminently generous, brave, and gentle; and the elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from his birth, genially compounded within him.  There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners, inexpressibly attractive.  It has never been my fortune to meet with him since my school-boy days; but either I confound my present recollections with the delusions of past feelings, or he is now a source of honour and utility to every one around him.  The tones of his voice were so soft and winning, that every word pierced into my heart; and their pathos was so deep, that in listening to him the tears have involuntarily gushed from my eyes.  Such was the being for whom I first experienced the sacred sentiments of friendship.”  How profound was the impression made on his imagination and his feelings by this early friendship, may again be gathered from a passage in his note upon the antique group of Bacchus and Ampelus at Florence.  “Look, the figures are walking with a sauntering and idle pace, and talking to each other as they walk, as you may have seen a younger and an elder boy at school, walking in some grassy spot of the play-ground with that tender friendship for each other which the age inspires.”