| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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: | 20 |
| |
| ‘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 | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| And, to the churchyard 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
| ‘And, turning from her grave, I met, | |
| Beside the churchyard yew, | |
| A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet | |
| With points of morning dew. | |
| |
| ‘A basket on her head she bare; | 45 |
| 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; | 50 |
| 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: | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| |
