The last night’s genial feeling overflowed
  Upon this morning, and my favourite grove,
  Tossing in sunshine its dark boughs aloft, [F] 45
  As if to make the strong wind visible,
  Wakes in me agitations like its own,
  A spirit friendly to the Poet’s task,
  Which we will now resume with lively hope,
  Nor checked by aught of tamer argument 50
  That lies before us, needful to be told.

    Returned from that excursion, [G] soon I bade
  Farewell for ever to the sheltered seats [H]
  Of gowned students, quitted hall and bower,
  And every comfort of that privileged ground, 55
  Well pleased to pitch a vagrant tent among
  The unfenced regions of society.

    Yet, undetermined to what course of life
  I should adhere, and seeming to possess
  A little space of intermediate time 60
  At full command, to London first I turned, [I]
  In no disturbance of excessive hope,
  By personal ambition unenslaved,
  Frugal as there was need, and, though self-willed,
  From dangerous passions free.  Three years had flown [K] 65
  Since I had felt in heart and soul the shock
  Of the huge town’s first presence, and had paced
  Her endless streets, a transient visitant:  [K]
  Now, fixed amid that concourse of mankind
  Where Pleasure whirls about incessantly, 70
  And life and labour seem but one, I filled
  An idler’s place; an idler well content
  To have a house (what matter for a home?)
  That owned him; living cheerfully abroad
  With unchecked fancy ever on the stir, 75
  And all my young affections out of doors.

    There was a time when whatsoe’er is feigned
  Of airy palaces, and gardens built
  By Genii of romance; or hath in grave
  Authentic history been set forth of Rome, 80
  Alcairo, Babylon, or Persepolis;
  Or given upon report by pilgrim friars,
  Of golden cities ten months’ journey deep
  Among Tartarian wilds—­fell short, far short,
  Of what my fond simplicity believed 85
  And thought of London—­held me by a chain
  Less strong of wonder and obscure delight. 
  Whether the bolt of childhood’s Fancy shot
  For me beyond its ordinary mark,
  ’Twere vain to ask; but in our flock of boys 90
  Was One, a cripple from his birth, whom chance
  Summoned from school to London; fortunate
  And envied traveller!  When the Boy returned,
  After short absence, curiously I scanned
  His mien and person, nor was free, in sooth, 95
  From disappointment, not to find some change
  In look and air, from that new region brought,
  As if from Fairy-land.  Much I questioned