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Its image would survive among his thoughts,

       And, therefore, my sweet MARY, this still nook

       With all its beeches we have named from You.

MICHAEL: A PASTORAL POEM.

       Table of Contents

      If from the public way you turn your steps

       Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill,

       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 beside that boisterous Brook

       The mountains have all open’d out themselves,

       And made a hidden valley of their own.

      No habitation there is seen; but such

       As journey thither find themselves alone

       With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites

       That overhead are sailing in the sky.

       It is in truth an utter solitude,

       Nor should I have made mention of this Dell

       But for one object which you might pass by,

       Might see and notice not. Beside the brook

       There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!

       And to that place a story appertains,

       Which, though it be ungarnish’d with events,

       Is not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,

       Or for the summer shade. It was the first,

       The earliest of those tales that spake to me

       Of Shepherds, dwellers in the vallies, men

       Whom I already lov’d, not verily

       For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills

       Where was their occupation and abode.

      And hence this Tale, while I was yet a boy

       Careless of books, yet having felt the power

       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 name.

       An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.

       His bodily frame had been from youth to age

       Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen

       Intense and frugal, apt for all affairs,

       And in his Shepherd’s calling he was prompt

       And watchful more than ordinary men.

      Hence he had learn’d the meaning of all winds,

       Of blasts of every tone, and oftentimes

       When others heeded not, He heard the South

       Make subterraneous music, like the noise

       Of Bagpipers on distant Highland hills;

       The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock

       Bethought him, and he to himself would say

       The winds are now devising work for me!

      And truly at all times the storm, that drives

       The Traveller to a shelter, summon’d him

       Up to the mountains: he had been alone

       Amid the heart of many thousand mists

       That came to him and left him on the heights.

       So liv’d he till his eightieth year was pass’d.

      And grossly that man errs, who should suppose

       That the green Valleys, and the Streams and Rocks

       Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts.

       Fields, where with chearful spirits he had breath’d

       The common air; the hills, which he so oft

       Had climb’d with vigorous steps; which had impress’d

       So many incidents upon his mind

       Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;

       Which like a book preserv’d the memory

       Of the dumb animals, whom he had sav’d,

       Had fed or shelter’d, linking to such acts,

       So grateful in themselves, the certainty

       Of honorable gains; these fields, these hills

       Which were his living Being, even more

       Than his own Blood — 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.

      He had not passed his days in singleness.

       He had a Wife, a comely Matron, old

       Though younger than himself full twenty years.

       She was a woman of a stirring life

       Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had

       Of antique form, this large for spinning wool,

       That small for flax, and if one wheel had rest,

       It was because the other was at work.

       The Pair had but one Inmate in their house,

       An only Child, who had been born to them

       When Michael telling o’er his years began

       To deem that he was old, in Shepherd’s phrase,

       With one foot in the grave. This only son,

       With two brave sheep dogs tried in many a storm.

      The one of an inestimable worth,

       Made all their Household. I may truly say,

       That they were as a proverb in the vale

       For endless industry. When day was gone,

       And from their occupations out of doors

       The Son and Father were come home, even then,

       Their labour did not cease, unless when all

       Turn’d to their cleanly supper-board, and there

       Each with a mess of pottage and skimm’d milk,

       Sate round their basket pil’d with oaten cakes,

       And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when their meal

       Was ended, LUKE (for so the Son was nam’d)

       And his old Father, both betook themselves

       To such convenient work, as might employ

       Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card

      

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