Home at Grasmere by Dorothy Wordsworth

Author:Dorothy Wordsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141935812
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

THE RUINED COTTAGE

Part 1st

‘Twas Summer, and the sun was mounted high,

Along the south the uplands feebly glared

Through a pale steam, and all the northern downs

In clearer air ascending shewed far off

Their surfaces on which the shadows lay

Of many clouds far as the sight could reach

Along the horizon’s edge, that lay in spots

Determined and unmoved; with steady beams

Of clear and pleasant sunshine interposed;

Pleasant to him who on the soft cool grass

Extends his careless limbs beside the root

Of some huge oak whose aged branches make

A twilight of their own, a dewy shade

Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,

Half conscious of that soothing melody,

With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene

By those impending branches made [more soft]

More soft and distant. Other lot was mine;

Across a bare wide Common I had toiled

With languid feet which by the slippery ground

Were baffled still; and when I stretched myself

On the brown earth, my limbs from very heat

Could find no rest, nor my weak arm disperse

The insect host which gathered round my face

And joined their murmurs to the tedious noise

Of seeds of bursting gorse which crackled round.

I rose and turned towards a group of trees

Which midway in that level stood alone,

And thither come at length beneath a shade

Of clustering elms that sprang from the same root

I found a ruined Cottage – four clay walls

That stared upon each other. ‘Twas a spot

The wandering gypsey in a stormy night

Would pass it with his moveables to house

On the open plain beneath the imperfect arch

Of a cold lime-kiln. As I looked around

Beside the door I saw an aged Man

Stretched on a bench whose edge with short bright moss

Was green, and studded o’er with fungus flowers.

An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I seen the day before, alone

And in the middle of the public way

Standing to rest himself. His eyes were turned

Towards the setting sun, while, with that staff

Behind him fixed, he propped a long white pack

Which crossed his shoulders; wares for maids who live

In lonely villages or straggling huts.

I knew him – he was born of lowly race

On Cumbrian hills, and I have seen the tear

Stand in his luminous eye when he described

The house in which his early youth was passed

And found I was no stranger to the spot.

I loved to hear him talk of former days

And tell how when a child, ere yet of age

To be a shepherd, he had learned to read

His bible in a school that stood alone,

Sole building on a mountain’s dreary edge,

Far from the sight of city spire, or sound

Of Minster clock. From that bleak tenement

He many an evening to his distant home

In solitude returning saw the hills

Grow larger in the darkness, all alone

Beheld the stars come out above his head,

And travelled through the wood, no comrade near,

To whom he might confess the things he saw.

So the foundations of his mind were laid

In such communion, not from terror free.

While yet a child, and long before his time

He had perceived the presence and the power

Of greatness, and deep feelings had impressed

Great objects on his mind, with

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