  We walked along, while bright and red Uprose the morning sun: And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, ‘The will of God be done!’ A village schoolmaster was he, With hair of glittering grey; As blithe a man as you could see On a spring holiday. And on that morning, through the grass, And by the steaming rills, We travelled merrily, to pass A day among the hills. ‘Our work,’ said I, ‘was well begun; Then, from thy breast what thought, Beneath so beautiful a sun, So sad a sigh has brought?’ A second time did Matthew stop; And fixing still his eye Upon the eastern mountain-top, To me he made reply: ’Yon cloud with that long purple cleft Brings fresh into my mind A day like this which I have left Full thirty years behind. _ ’And just above yon slope of corn Such colours, and no other, Were in the sky, that April morn, Of this the very brother. ’With rod and line I sued the sport Which that sweet season gave, And, to the church-yard come, stopped short Beside my daughter’s grave. ’Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale; And then she sang;—she would have been A very nightingale. ’Six feet in earth my Emma lay; And yet I loved her more, For so it seemed, than till that day I e’er had loved before. ’And, turning from her grave, I met, Beside the church-yard yew, A blooming girl, whose hair was wet With points of morning dew. ’A basket on her head she bare; Her brow was smooth and white: To see a child so very fair It was a pure delight! ’No fountain from its rocky cave E’er tripped with foot so free; She seemed as happy as a wave That dances on the sea. ‘There came from me a sigh of pain Which I could ill confine; I looked at her, and looked again, And did not wish her mine!’ Matthew is in his grave, yet now, Methinks, I see him stand, As at that moment, with a bough Of wilding in his hand. W. Wordsworth. |
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