They
met on their return
The Brabant armies on the fret
For battle in the cause of liberty.
But the exulting pulse that ran through the poet's veins could
hardly yet pause to sympathize deeply even with what in the world's
life appealed most directly to ardent youth.
A stripling, scarcely of the household then
Of social life, I looked upon these things
As from a distance; heard, and saw, and felt--
Was touched, but with no intimate concern.
I seemed to move along them as a bird
Moves through the air--or as a fish pursues
Its sport, or feeds in its proper element.
I wanted not that joy, I did not need
Such help. The ever-living universe,
Turn where I might, was opening out its glories;
And the independent spirit of pure youth
Called forth at every season new delights,
Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.
CHAPTER II.
RESIDENCE IN LONDON AND IN FRANCE.
Wordsworth took his B.A. degree in January, 1791, and quitted
Cambridge with no fixed intentions as to his future career.
"He did not feel himself," he said long afterwards, "good enough for
the Church; he felt that his mind was not properly disciplined for
that holy office, and that the struggle between his conscience and
his impulses would have made life a torture.
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