SIMON LEE

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

[This poem is one of Wordsworth's characteristic contributions to the Lyrical Ballads, of which he said that they were distinguished from the poetry of the day in that "the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling." Compare with this remark lines 61-68.]

In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,-
'Tis said he once was tall.

Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.

No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round,
The halloo of Simon Lee.

ΙΟ

20

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?

Oft, working by her husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.

And though you with your utmost skill From labor could not wean them,

'Tis little, very little, all

That they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store,

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

Do his weak ankles swell.

My gentle reader, I perceive

And now I fear that you expect

How patiently you've waited,

Some tale will be related.

O reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader! you would find

A tale in everything.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:

It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavor,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked forever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee;
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavored.

50

60

70

80

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run 90
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

(1798)

2 still. Always.

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 nightYou 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.

80

30

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, 40 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.

(1800)

MICHAEL

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

50

60

[Of this poem Wordsworth wrote: "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,"— that is, at Grasmere.]

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.

20

And to that simple object appertains
A story-unenriched with strange events,
Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first
Of those domestic tales that spake to me
Of shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
Whom I already loved; 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

30

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 40 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 had he learned the meaning of all winds,

Of blasts of every tone; and, oftentimes, When others heeded not, he heard the South 50

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 traveler to a shelter, summoned 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. 60

So lived he till his eightieth year was past. 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 cheerful spirits he had breathed

The common air; hills, which with vigorous step

He had so often climbed; which had impressed

68

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 single-

130

This light was famous in its neighborhood,
And was a public symbol of the life
That thrifty pair had lived. For, as it
chanced,

Their cottage on a plot of rising ground Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,

High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise, And westward to the village near the lake; And from this constant light, so regular And so far seen, the house itself, by all Who dwelt within the limits of the vale, Both old and young, was named The Evening Star.

Thus living on through such a length of years,

140

The shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs

Have loved his helpmate; but to Michael's heart

This son of his old age was yet more dear

Less from instinctive tenderness, the same Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood

of all

Than that a child, more than all other gifts

That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,

148

And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.
Exceeding was the love he bare to him,
His heart and his heart's joy! For often-
times

Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,
Had done him female service, not alone
For pastime and delight, as is the use
Of fathers, but with patient mind en-
forced

To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked
His cradle, as with a woman's gentle hand.
And, in a later time, ere yet the boy
Had put on boy's attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind, 161