"On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some fairy place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother! That far outstripped the other; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind; For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last." [11] in which may be traced the first dawnings of his genius. He pictures to himself a boy returning to school after the holidays; in his day-dreams making plans for the future, and anticipating the pleasure he is to enjoy on his return home; his vivid thoughts, and sanguine expectations "far outstripping" the reality of time as marked by the watch or almanack. Real time is personified as a blind boy steadily pursuing his path; whilst imaginary time is represented as a fleeting girl, looking back and listening for her brother whom she has outrun. Perhaps to Mr. Bowyer's excellent method of instruction may be attributed this early developement of his genius. Coleridge remarks of him, "He was an admirable educer, no less than educator of intellect; he taught me to leave out as many epithets as would make eight syllable lines, and then ask if the exercise would not be greatly improved." Although in this year he began to indulge in metaphysical speculations, he was wedded to verse, and many of his early poems were planned; some of which he finished, and they were published in the "Juvenile Poems," on his entry into life; but as many more were scattered among his friends, who had greatly increased in number. About this time he became acquainted with a widow lady, "whose son," says he, "I, as upper boy, had protected, and who therefore looked up to me, and taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her as such. She had three daughters, and of course I fell in love with the eldest. From this time to my nineteenth year, when I quitted school for Jesus, Cambridge, was the era of poetry and love."