Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/157

 BOOK SIXTH.

CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS.

leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks

And the simplicities of cottage life

I bade farewell; and, one among the youth

Who, summoned by that season, reunite

As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure,

Went back to Granta's cloisters, not so prompt

Or eager, though as gay and undepressed

In mind, as when I thence had taken flight

A few short months before. I turned my face

Without repining from the coves and heights

Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern;

Quitted, not loth, the mild magnificence

Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you,

Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland,

You and your not unwelcome days of mirth,