In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why
  Take note of this?  When I began to enquire, 160
  To watch and question those I met, and speak
  Without reserve to them, the lonely roads
  Were open schools in which I daily read
  With most delight the passions of mankind,
  Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed; 165
  There saw into the depth of human souls,
  Souls that appear to have no depth at all
  To careless eyes.  And-now convinced at heart
  How little those formalities, to which
  With overweening trust alone we give 170
  The name of Education, have to do
  With real feeling and just sense; how vain
  A correspondence with the talking world
  Proves to the most; and called to make good search
  If man’s estate, by doom of Nature yoked 175
  With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;
  If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,
  And intellectual strength so rare a boon—­
  I prized such walks still more, for there I found
  Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace 180
  And steadiness, and healing and repose
  To every angry passion.  There I heard,
  From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths
  Replete with honour; sounds in unison
  With loftiest promises of good and fair. 185

    There are who think that strong affection, love [D]
  Known by whatever name, is falsely deemed
  A gift, to use a term which they would use,
  Of vulgar nature; that its growth requires
  Retirement, leisure, language purified 190
  By manners studied and elaborate;
  That whoso feels such passion in its strength
  Must live within the very light and air
  Of courteous usages refined by art. 
  True is it, where oppression worse than death 195
  Salutes the being at his birth, where grace
  Of culture hath been utterly unknown,
  And poverty and labour in excess
  From day to day pre-occupy the ground
  Of the affections, and to Nature’s self 200
  Oppose a deeper nature; there, indeed,
  Love cannot be; nor does it thrive with ease
  Among the close and overcrowded haunts
  Of cities, where the human heart is sick,
  And the eye feeds it not, and cannot feed. 205
  —­Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel
  How we mislead each other; above all,
  How books mislead us, seeking their reward
  From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see
  By artificial lights; how they debase 210
  The Many for the pleasure of those Few;
  Effeminately level down the truth
  To certain general notions, for the sake
  Of being understood at once, or else
  Through want of better knowledge in the