He asks whether Hallam is looking back on this life,
"As some divinely gifted man,"
who has burst through all the adverse circumstances of his humble birth,
by genius and labour; making
"by force his merit known,
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;"
as Lord Beaconsfield did.
Does not such a hero in his elevation,
"When all his active powers are still,"
sometimes feel tender memories of the scenes of his early life--
"The limit of his narrower fate"--
when he "play'd at counsellors and kings" with some lad long ago left
behind in his native obscurity; and who now resting on his plough,
musingly asks,
"Does my old friend remember me?"