282

WORDSWORTH'S POEMS.

And in the wisdom of our daily life.
For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,
He had observed the progress and decay
Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
The history of many families;

How they had prosper'd; how they were o'erthrown
By passion or mischance; or such misrule
Among the unthinking masters of the earth
As makes the nations groan. This active course,
Chosen in youth, through manhood he pursued,
Till due provision for his modest wants

Had been obtain'd; and, thereupon, resolved
To pass the remnant of his days untask'd
With needless services, from hardship free.
His calling laid aside, he lived at ease:
But still he loved to pace the public roads

And the wild paths; and, when the summer's warmth
Invited him, would often leave his home
And journey far, revisiting those scenes
That to his memory were most endear'd.
Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, untouch'd
By worldly-mindedness or anxious care;
Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refresh'd
By knowledge gather'd up from day to day ;-
Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.

The Scottish Church, both on himself and those
With whom from childhood he grew up, had held
The strong hand of her purity; and still
Had watch'd him with an unrelenting eye.
This he remember'd in his riper age
With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.
But by the native vigour of his mind,
By his habitual wanderings out of doors,
By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,
Whate'er in docile childhood or in youth
He had imbibed of fear or darker thought,
Was melted all away: so true was this,
That sometimes his religion seem'd to me
Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;
Who to the model of his own pure heart
Framed his belief, as grace divine inspired,
Or human reason dictated with awe.
-And surely never did there live on earth
A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports
And teasing ways of children vex'd not him;
Nor could he bid them from his presence, tired
With questions and importunate demand.
Indulgent listener was he to the tongue
Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale.
To his fraternal sympathy address'd,
Obtain reluctant hearing.

Plain his garb,
Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared

For Sabbath duties; yet he was a man

Whom no one could have pass'd without remark,
Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs
And his whole figure breathed intelligence.
Time had compress'd the freshness of his cheek
Into a narrower circle of deep red;

But had not tamed his eye, that under brows
Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought
From years of youth; which, like a being made
Of many beings, he had wondrous skill

To blend with knowledge of the years to come,
Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.

So was he framed and such his course of life,
Who now, with no appendage but a staff,
The prized memorial of relinquish'd toils,
Upon that cottage bench reposed his limbs,
Screen'd from the sun. Supine the wanderer lay,
His eyes as if in drowsiness half-shut,
The shadows of the breezy elms above
Dappling his face. He had not heard my steps
As I approach'd, and near him did I stand
Unnoticed in the shade some minutes' space.
At length I hail'd him, seeing that his hat
Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim
Had newly scoop'd a running stream.
He rose,
And ere the pleasant greeting that ensued
Was ended, "Tis," said I, a burning day;
My lips are parch'd with thirst, but you, I guess,
Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word,
Pointing towards a sweet-brier, bade me climb
The fence hard by, where that aspiring shrub
Look'd out upon the road. It was a plot
Of garden-ground run wild, its matted weeds

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Mark'd with the steps of those, whom, as they pass'd,
The gooseberry-trees that shot in long lank slips,
Or currants hanging from their leafless stems

In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap
The broken wall. I look'd around, and there,
Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs
Join'd in a cold damp nook, espied a well
Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern.
My thirst I slaked, and from the cheerless spot
Withdrawing, straightway to the shade return'd
Where sate the old man on the cottage bench;
And while, beside him, with uncover'd head,
I yet was standing, freely to respire,
And cool my temples in the fanning air,
Thus did he speak :-"I see around me here
Things which you cannot see: we die, my friend
Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth,
Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon
Even of the good is no memorial left.

The poets, in their elegies and songs
Lamenting the departed, call the groves,
They call upon the hills and streams to mourn.
And senseless rocks; nor idly-for they speak,
In these their invocations, with a voice
Obedient to the strong creative power
Of human passion. Sympathies there are
More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth,
That steal upon the meditative mind,

And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood
And eyed its waters till we seem'd to feel
One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
Of brotherhood is broken: time has been
When, every day, the touch of human hand
Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up
In mortal stillness; and they minister'd
To human comfort. As I stoop'd to drink,
Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied
The useless fragment of a wooden bowl,
Green with the moss of years; a pensive sight
That moved my heart, recalling former days,
When I could never pass that road but she
Who lived within these walls, at my approach,
A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her
As my own child. O sir! the good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket. Many a passenger
Hath bless'd poor Margaret for her gentle looks,
When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn
From that forsaken spring; and no one came
But he was welcome; no one went away
But that it seem'd she loved him. She is dead,
The light extinguish'd of her lonely hut,
The hut itself abandon'd to decay,

And she forgotten in the quiet grave!

"I speak," continued he, "of one whose stock
Of virtues bloom'd beneath this lowly roof.
She was a woman of a steady mind,
Tender and deep in her excess of love,
Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy
Of her own thoughts: by some especial care
Her temper had been framed, as if to make
A being, who, by adding love to peace,
Might live on earth a life of happiness.
Her wedded partner lack'd not on his side
The humble worth that satisfied her heart;
Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal
Keenly industrious. She with pride would te
That he was often seated at his loom,
In summer, ere the mower was abroad
Among the dewy grass,-in early spring,
Ere the last star had vanish'd. They who pass'd
At evening, from behind the garden fence
Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply,