Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/169

BOOK VI.] And didst sit down in temperance and peace,

A rigorous student. What a stormy course

Then followed. Oh! it is a pang that calls

For utterance, to think what easy change

Of circumstances might to thee have spared

A world of pain, ripened a thousand hopes,

For ever withered. Through this retrospect

Of my collegiate life I still have had

Thy after-sojourn in the self-same place

Present before my eyes, have played with times

And accidents as children do with cards,

Or as a man, who, when his house is built,

A frame locked up in wood and stone, doth still,

As impotent fancy prompts, by his fireside,

Rebuild it to his liking. I have thought

Of thee, thy learning, gorgeous eloquence,

And all the strength and plumage of thy youth,

Thy subtle speculations, toils abstruse

Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms

Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out

From things well-matched or ill, and words for things,

The self-created sustenance of a mind

Debarred from Nature's living images,

Compelled to be a life unto herself,

And unrelentingly possessed by thirst