Early had he learned To reverence the volume that displays The mystery, the life which cannot die:-- What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts, there had no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude, Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind, And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works through patience:--hence he learned In oft-recurring hours of sober thought To look on nature with a humble heart, Self-questioned, where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love. So passed the time; yet to the nearest town He duly went, with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The book that most had tempted his desires, While at the stall he read. Among the hills He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, The divine Milton. Lore of different kind, The annual savings of a toilsome life, His schoolmaster supplied; books that explain The purer elements of truth, involved, In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe, (Especially perceived where nature droops, And feeling is suppressed) preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty. Yet still uppermost, Nature was at his heart, as if he felt, Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power In all things that from her sweet influence Might tend to wean him. Therefore, with her hues, Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, He clothed the nakedness of austere truth, While yet he lingered in the rudiments Of science, and among her simplest laws, His triangles--they were the stars of heaven, The silent stars! Oft did he take delight To measure th’ altitude of some tall crag That is the eagle’s birthplace, or some peak Familiar with forgotten years.---- In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, Thus was he reared; much wanting to assist The growth of intellect, yet gaining more, And every moral feeling of his soul Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content The keen, the wholesome air of poverty, And drinking from the well of homely life. _The Excursion_, B. 1.