Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/195

BOOK VII.] Of Winter that had warbled at my door,

And the whole year breathed tenderness and love.

The last night's genial feeling overflowed

Upon this morning, and my favourite grove,

Tossing in sunshine its dark boughs aloft,

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

That lies before us, needful to be told.

Returned from that excursion,(8) soon I bade

Farewell for ever to the sheltered seats

Of gownèd students, quitted hall and bower,

And every comfort of that privileged ground,

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

At full command, to London first I turned,

In no disturbance of excessive hope,