The Poem
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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, 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: "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, 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. "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, 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; "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 About the crazy old church-clock, And the bewildered chimes. Contents |
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"Pour me plaindre a moy, regarde noti tant ce qu'on moste, que ce qui me reste de sauvre, et dedans et dehors."
Montaigne,
Essais
, iii. 12.
Compare also:
"Themistocles quidem, cum ei Simonides, an quis alius artem memoriæ polliceretur, Oblivionis, inquit, mallem; nam memini etiam quæ nolo, oblivisci non possum quæ volo."
Cicero,
De Finibus
, II. 32
.—Ed.
To a Sexton
Composed 1799.—Published 1800
[Written in Germany, 1799.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.
The Poem
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| 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, 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! 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, O Sexton, do not then remove her, Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover! Contents |
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The Danish Boy
A Fragment
Composed 1799.—Published 1800
[Written in Germany, 1799. It was entirely a fancy; but intended as a
prelude to a ballad-poem never written.—I. F.]
In the editions of 1800-1832 this poem was called A Fragment.
From 1836 onwards it was named The Danish Boy. A Fragment. It was
one of the "Poems of the Fancy." —Ed.
The Poem
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. Contents |
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These Stanzas were designed to introduce a Ballad upon the
Story of a Danish Prince who had fled from Battle, and, for the sake of
the valuables about him, was murdered by the Inhabitant of a Cottage in
which he had taken refuge. The House fell under a curse, and the Spirit
of the Youth, it was believed, haunted the Valley where the crime had
been committed.— W. W. 1827.
Lucy Gray; or, Solitude
Composed 1799.—Published 1800
[Written at Goslar, in Germany, in 1799. 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
tracked by her parents to the middle of a lock of a canal, and no other
vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The 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 endeavoured to throw over
common life, with Crabbe's matter-of-fact style of handling 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 enlarge the circle of their
sensibilities, and tend to produce in them a catholic judgment.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."—Ed.
The Poem
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| 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." "That, Father! will I gladly do: 'Tis scarcely afternoon— The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!" 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; 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. 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. Note Contents |
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