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But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.

-Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.
1799. 1800.

MATTHEW

In the School of- - is a tablet, on which are inscribed in gilt letters, the Names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite to one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

Such a Tablet as is here spoken of continued to be preserved in Hawkshead School, though the inscriptions were not brought down to our time. This and other poems connected with Matthew would not gain by a literal detail of facts. Like the Wanderer in "The Excursion," this Schoolmaster was made up of several both of his class and men of other occupations. I do not ask pardon for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered strictly as matters of fact. It is enough if, being true and consistent in spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy of a Poet's calling. (Wordsworth.)

IF Nature, for a favorite 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

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 hath 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.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs

Of one tired out with fun and madness;

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A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

"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 colors, 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,

And, to the church-yard come, stopped

short

Beside my daughter's grave.

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We talked with open heart, and tongue Affectionate and true.

A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two,

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

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,

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Written at Goslar in Germany. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my Sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snow-storm. Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, The backward or forward, could be traced. body however was found in the canal. The way in which the incident was treated and the spiritualizing of the character might furnish hints for contrasting the imaginative influences which I have endeavored to throw over common life with Crabbe's matter of fact style of treating subjects of the same kind. This is not spoken to his disparagement, far from it, but to direct the attention of thoughtful readers, into whose hands these notes may fall, to a comparison that may both enlarge the circle of their sensibilities, and tend to produce in them a catholic judg ment. (Wordsworth.)

See also Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary, Sept. 11, 1816.

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;
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
Your mother through the snow.'

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At this the Father raised his hook, And snapped a fagot 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;
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 daybreak on the hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.

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;
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.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

1799. 1800.

MICHAEL

A PASTORAL POEM

Written at Town-end, Grasmere, about the same time as "The Brothers." The Sheepfold, on which so much of the poem turns, remains, or rather the ruins of it. The character and circumstances of Luke were taken from a family to whom had belonged, many years before, the house we lived in at Town end, along with some fields and woodlands on the eastern shore of Grasmere. The name of the Evening Star was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the same side of the valley, more to the north. (Wordsworth.)

IF from the public way you turn your steps

Up the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,

You will suppose that with an upright path

Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent

The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.

But, courage! for around that boisterous brook

The mountains have all opened out themselves,

And made a hidden valley of their own. No habitation can be seen; but they Who journey thither find themselves

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Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and
think

(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human
life.

Therefore, although it be a history Homely and rude, I will relate the same For the delight of a few natural hearts; And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake

Of youthful Poets, who among these hills Will be my second self when I am gone. UPON the forest-side in Grasmere Vale There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his

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He had so often climbed; which had impressed

So many incidents upon his mind Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;

Which, like a book, preserved the memory

Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved,

Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts

The certainty of honorable gain; Those fields, those hills-what could they less? had laid

Strong hold on his affections, were to him

A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself.
His days had not been passed in sin-

gleness.

His Helpmate was a comely matron, old

Though younger than himself full twenty

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