Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/168

146 As if in several elements, we were framed

To bend at last to the same discipline,

Predestined, if two beings ever were,

To seek the same delights, and have one health,

One happiness. Throughout this narrative,

Else sooner ended, I have borne in mind

For whom it registers the birth, and marks the growth,

Of gentleness, simplicity, and truth,

And joyous loves, that hallow innocent days

Of peace and self-command. Of rivers, fields,

And groves I speak to thee, my Friend! to thee,

Who, yet a liveried schoolboy, in the depths

Of the huge city, on the leaded roof

Of that wide edifice, thy school and home,

Wert used to lie and gaze upon the clouds

Moving in heaven; or, of that pleasure tired,

To shut thine eyes, and by internal light

See trees, and meadows, and thy native stream,

Far distant, thus beheld from year to year

Of a long exile. Nor could I forget,

In this late portion of my argument,

That scarcely, as my term of pupilage

Ceased, had I left those academic bowers

When thou wert thither guided. From the heart

Of London, and from cloisters there, thou camest,