He speaks with awe of Newton (who attended Trinity), Chaucer, Spenser (Wordsworth calls him "brother"), and of Milton ("an awful soul"). His attempt to imagine them as flesh and blood is not altogether successful. He tries in reverie to link them as human beings with the unchanged landmarks of the university. In trying to curb his laziness, he is mindful of the great alumni of Cambridge. He speaks of social acts, riots, bull sessions at night, riding, and sailing on the River Cam. He notices a change in himself: Often to escape loneliness, he leaned toward the throng. The poet suggests that he read rather widely, but it imparted no certainty or useful knowledge. He praises the immortal soul and claims that every person, however poor, has known "godlike" hours which could not be communicated to others. He says that he recognized genius and divinity by exploring inwardly not through outward deeds. Others who caught him off guard imagined him mad, but he knew they were witnessing the divine madness that is prophecy. He says he "gave" a moral life to the very stones, and everything in his life was filled with inward meaning. He felt a holiness in the permanence and reasonableness of all things. Here, his mood was without fail brightened. As the dazzle of the university wore off, he forsook his companions and sought the countryside. He had occasional fears about his future worldly maintenance. Academic glory was little sought by him, however, and seldom won. He mentions the round of college labors, lectures, and the hopes and fears connected with exams. He was also within sound of the Trinity organ. It was a nook just below the college kitchens, not far from the clock of Trinity College, which told the quarter-hours night and day. In the first of three courts of the college yard was Wordsworth's favorite spot. In short, he is leading the life of the dandy. He moves within a small circle, and his many invitations and diversions have the effect of making time fly. He has all the clothes of a gentleman, but he cannot yet boast a beard. Withal, the crowd strikes him as a motley one, but he finds it exciting. "I was the dreamer, they the dream," he recalls. His spirits are up as he explores shop after shop. There is a buzz of activity: Students guide one another, make inquiries, and offer opinions. He dramatizes much that happens about him. He has made a few acquaintances, mostly overgrown schoolboys like himself. The excitement of the university town begins to take hold of him. They alight at a famous inn called the Hoop. They pass beneath the castle and across Magdalene Bridge, from which there is a vista of Cambridge town. The town and its university suddenly seem to draw the coach and its occupants. The poet speculates about the cause of his haste - whether he is pressed for time or for exercise. The coach passes a student who is hurrying on his way. However, his heart stirs and beats more quickly as he sees the chapel of King's College. As the wheels of the coach lumber over the desolate plain, the poet's mood matches that of the weather. Now he is about to be challenged by the stimulating sophistication of gifted young men who come from near and far and from all walks of life. In a broad sense, the simplicity of his youthful habitat and companions forced him inward upon his own imagination. His views have mostly formed he must decide now through what occupation he will express those views. These investigations are to be put aside while the poet explores some of the larger world about him. The more fundamental philosophical questions about life have been partially answered. From the introspection and sometimes moody tone of the first two books, we turn to somewhat more forthright events, which are described in a lighter vein.
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