And when his breath was fled,
I raised, while kneeling by his side,
His hand:—it dropped like lead.
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
That can be done, will never fall 10
Like his till they are dead.
By night or day blow foul or fair,
Ne’er will the best of all your train
Play with the locks of his white hair,
Or stand between his knees again.
Here did he sit confined for hours;
But he could see the woods and plains,
Could hear the wind and mark the showers
Come streaming down the streaming panes.
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound 20
He rests a prisoner of the ground.
He loved the breathing air,
He loved the sun, but if it rise
Or set, to him where now he lies,
Brings not a moment’s care.
Alas! what idle words; but take
The Dirge which for our Master’s sake
And yours, love prompted me to make.
The rhymes so homely in attire
With learned ears may ill agree, 30
But chanted by your Orphan Quire
Will make a touching melody.
DIRGE
Mourn, Shepherd, near thy old grey stone;
Thou Angler, by the silent flood;
And mourn when thou art all alone,
Thou Woodman, in the distant wood!
Thou one blind Sailor, rich in joy
Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum;
And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy!
Born deaf, and living deaf and dumb. 40
Thou drooping sick Man, bless the Guide
Who checked or turned thy headstrong youth,
As he before had sanctified
Thy infancy with heavenly truth.
Ye Striplings, light of heart and gay,
Bold settlers on some foreign shore,
Give, when your thoughts are turned this way,
A sigh to him whom we deplore.
For us who here in funeral strain
With one accord our voices raise, 50
Let sorrow overcharged with pain
Be lost in thankfulness and praise.
And when our hearts shall feel a sting
From ill we meet or good we miss,
May touches of his memory bring
Fond healing, like a mother’s kiss.
BY THE SIDE OF THE GRAVE SOME YEARS AFTER
LONG time his pulse hath ceased to beat
But benefits, his gift, we trace—
Expressed in every eye we meet
Round this dear Vale, his native place. 60
To stately Hall and Cottage rude
Flowed from his life what still they hold,
Light pleasures, every day, renewed;
And blessings half a century old.
Oh true of heart, of spirit gay,
Thy faults, where not already gone
From memory, prolong their stay
For charity’s sweet sake alone.
Such solace find we for our loss;
And what beyond this thought we crave 70
Comes in the promise from the Cross,
Shining upon thy happy grave.
1798.
MATTHEW
IF Nature, for a favourite child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,
Read o’er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue
Its history of two hundred years.
—When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye 10
Has travelled down to Matthew’s name,
Pause with no common sympathy.
And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.
Poor Matthew, all his frolics o’er,
Is silent as a standing pool;
Far from the chimney’s merry roar,
And murmur of the village school. 20
The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew’s eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.
Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up—
He felt with spirit so profound.
—Thou soul of God’s best earthly mould!
Thou happy Soul! and can it be 30
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?
1799.
THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS
WE walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
“The will of God be done!”
A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as yon could see
On a spring holiday.
And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills, 10
We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills.
“Our work,” said I, “was well begun,
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?”
A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:20
“Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.
“And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.
“With rod and line I sued the sport
Which that sweet season gave, 30
And, to the church-yard come, stopped short
Beside my daughter’s grave.
“Nine summers had she scarcely seen,
The pride of all the vale;
And then she sang;—she would have been
A very nightingale.
“Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more,
For so it seemed, than till that day
I e’er had loved before. 40
“And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,
A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.
“A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!
“No fountain from its rocky cave
E’er tripped with foot so free; 50
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.
“There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;
I looked at her, and looked again:
And did not wish her mine!”
Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand. 60
1799.
THE FOUNTAIN
A CONVERSATION
WE talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.
&nbs
p; We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;
And from the turf a fountain broke,
And gurgled at our feet.
“Now, Matthew!” said I, “let us match
This water’s pleasant tune 10
With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer’s noon;
“Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade,
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!”
In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old Man replied,
The grey-haired man of glee:20
“No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears;
How merrily it goes!
‘Twill murmur on a thousand years,
And flow as now it flows.
“And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think
How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain’s brink.
“My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred, 30
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
“Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.
“The blackbird amid leafy trees,
The lark above the hill,
Let loose their carols when they please
Are quiet when they will. 40
“With Nature never do ‘they’ wage
A foolish strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:
“But we are pressed by heavy laws;
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.
“If there be one who need bemoan
His kindred laid in earth, 50
The household hearts that were his own;
It is the man of mirth.
“My days, my Friend, are almost gone,
My life has been approved,
And many love me; but by none
Am I enough beloved.”
“Now both himself and me he wrongs,
The man who thus complains;
I live and sing my idle songs
Upon these happy plains; 60
“And, Matthew, for thy children dead
I’ll be a son to thee!”
At this he grasped my hand, and said,
“Alas! that cannot be.”
We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent
Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went;
And, ere we came to Leonard’s rock,
He sang those witty rhymes 70
About the crazy old church-clock,
And the bewildered chimes.
1799.
TO A SEXTON
LET thy wheel-barrow alone—
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
‘Tis already like a hill
In a field of battle made,
Where three thousand skulls are laid;
These died in peace each with the other,—
Father, sister, friend, and brother.
Mark the spot to which I point!
From this platform, eight feet square, 10
Take not even a finger-joint:
Andrew’s whole fire-side is there.
Here, alone, before thine eyes,
Simon’s sickly daughter lies,
From weakness now, and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.
Look but at the gardener’s pride—
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families! 20
By the heart of Man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, too heedless, art the Warden
Of a far superior garden.
Thus then, each to other dear,
Let them all in quiet lie,
Andrew there, and Susan here,
Neighbours in mortality.
And, should I live through sun and rain
Seven widowed years without my Jane, 30
O Sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover!
1799.
THE DANISH BOY
A FRAGMENT
I
BETWEEN two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.
And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a lonely hut;
And in this dell you see
A thing no storm can e’er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish Boy.
II
In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest;
Within this lonesome nook the bird
Did never build her nest.
No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells
To other flowers:—to other dells
Their burthens do they bear;
The Danish Boy walks here alone:
The lovely dell is all his own.
III
A Spirit of noon-day is he;
Yet seems a form of flesh and blood;
Nor piping shepherd shall he be,
Nor herd-boy of the wood.
A regal vest of fur he wears,
In colour like a raven’s wing;
It fears not rain, nor wind, nor dew;
But in the storm ‘tis fresh and blue
As budding pines in spring;
His helmet has a vernal grace,
Fresh as the bloom upon his face.
IV
A harp is from his shoulder slung;
Resting the harp upon his knee,
To words of a forgotten tongue
He suits its melody.
Of flocks upon the neighbouring hill
He is the darling and the joy;
And often, when no cause appears,
The mountain-ponies prick their ears,
—They hear the Danish Boy,
While in the dell he sings alone
Beside the tree and corner-stone.
V
There sits he; in his face you spy
No trace of a ferocious air,
Nor ever was a cloudless sky
So steady or so fair.
The lovely Danish Boy is blest
And happy in his flowery cove:
From bloody deeds his thoughts are far;
And yet he warbles songs of war,
That seem like songs of love,
For calm and gentle is his mien;
Like a dead Boy he is serene.
1799.
LUCY GRAY
OR, SOLITUDE
OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
—The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green; 10
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
“To-night will be a stormy night—
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
<
br /> Your mother through the snow.”
“That, Father! will I gladly do:
‘Tis scarcely afternoon—
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!” 20
At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work;—and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down; 30
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.
The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.
At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door. 40
They wept—and, turning homeward, cried,
“In heaven we all shall meet;”
—When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy’s feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill’s edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;
And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same; 50
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.
They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!
—Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild. 60
O’er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
1799.
RUTH
WHEN Ruth was left half desolate,
Her Father took another Mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at her own will
Went wandering over dale and hill,
In thoughtless freedom, bold.
And she had made a pipe of straw,
And music from that pipe could draw
Like sounds of winds and floods;
Had built a bower upon the green, 10
As if she from her birth had been
An infant of the woods.
Beneath her father’s roof, alone
She seemed to live; her thoughts her own;
Herself her own delight;
Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth Page 162
