Pealed to his orisons, and when he paced LINES Written with a pencil upon a stone in the wall of the House (an Out-house) on the Island at Grasmere. Rude is this Edifice, and Thou hast seen With the ideal grace. Yet as it is Do take it in good part; for he, the poor From the great City; never on the leaves The skeletons and pre-existing ghosts Of Beauties yet unborn, the rustic Box, The heifer comes in the snow-storm, and here The new-dropped lamb finds shelter from the wind. And hither does one Poet sometimes row His Pinnace, a small vagrant Barge, up-piled With plenteous store of heath and withered fern, (A lading which he with his sickle cuts Among the mountains,) and beneath this roof Lie round him, even as if they were a part Of his own Household: nor, while from his bed He through that door-place looks toward the lake And to the stirring breezes, does he want Creations lovely as the work of sleep, Fair sights, and visions of romantic joy. To a SEXTON. Let thy wheel-barrow alone. 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! 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- Roses, Lilies, side by side, Violets in families! By the heart of Man, his tears, By his hopes and by his fears, Thou, old Gray-beard! 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. |