The Shepherd

There once was a shepherd, Michael was his name,
On the heights so lived he, till his eightieth year,
He had learned of the meaning of all winds,
Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear.

Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
Intense and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And watchful more than ordinary men
His neighbours, when he passed, blessed him with prayers.

The common air; hills, he had so often climbed,
With two brave sheep dogs tried in many a storm,
The pleasure which is there is in life itself,
Which like a book, preserves the memory of form.

And westward to the village near the lake
He dwelt at constant beck of wind and rain
An old man, stout of heart and strong of limb,
Life of sole purpose, the certainty of honourable gain.

(From Wordsworths ‘Michael’)

Moving On.

  (From Wordsworth’s ‘THE BROTHERS’)

Pencil in hand and book upon the knee

Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves,

Expectations to the fickle winds

Such a confusion to his memory of leaves.

He to the solitary church yard turned

To that particular spot his family were laid

The thought of death sits easy on the man

And for my part, I have often prayed.

Upon the long stone seat beneath the eaves,

Expectations to the fickle winds

Such a confusion to his memory of leaves.

He to the solitary church yard turned

To that particular spot his family were laid

The thought of death sits easy on the man

And for my part, I have often prayed.

He had gone forth among the new dropped lambs,

There were butterflies to wheel about,

Strange alterations wrought on every side,

That he began to doubt

that you are heedless of the past,

here’s neither head nor foot-stone, plate of brass

we talk about the dead by our fire-sides

who many years ago this road did pass.

A child is born or christened, a web spun,

For accidents and changes such as these

In this our valley all of us have wished

For verdant hills with dwellings among trees.

The happy man will creep about the fields

Now there sir, is a thought that’s new to me’

No look and scribble, no scribble and look

Can trace the finger of mortality

My Father (extracts from ‘the female vagrant’)



By Derwent's side my father's cottage stood'

My father was a pious man and good.

Still, to cruel injuries he became a prey

till all his substance fell into decay.

'Twas a hard change, an evil time was come,

We had no hope, no relief from noisy drum.

The swans to meet me came at water side

and knew not why, my father happy died.

An honest man by honest parents bred

and in his hearing, there my prayers I said.

Can I forget that miserable hour?

There close by my mother in their native bower.

Oh! dreadful price of being to resign

in want's lonely cave till death do pine.

I looked and looked along the silent air

remote from man and storms of mortal care.

Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised,

Memory dismissed, again on open day I gazed.




William Wordsworth (1770-1850)