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In this poor cottage. At his door he stood
And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes
That had no mirth in them, or with his knife
Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks; 165
Then idly sought about through every nook
Or house or garden any casual task
Of use or ornament and with a strange,
Amusing but uneasy novelty
He blended where he might the various tasks 170
Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring,
But this endured not; his good humour soon
Became a weight in which no pleasure was,
And poverty brought on a petted mood
And a sore temper. Day by day he drooped, 175
And he would leave his home, and to the town
Without an errand would he turn his steps,
Or wander here and there among the fields.
One while he would speak lightly of his babes
And with a cruel tongue; at other times 180
He played with them wild freaks of merriment,
And 'twas a piteous thing to see the looks
Of the poor innocent children. "Every smile",
Said Margaret to me here beneath these trees,
"Made my heart bleed.” At this the old man paused, 185
And looking up to those enormous elms
He said, "Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
At this still season of repose and peace,
This hour when all things which are not at rest
Are cheerful, while this multitude of flies 190
Fills all the air with happy melody,
Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?
Why should we thus with an untoward mind,
And in the weakness of humanity
From natural wisdom turn our hearts away, 195
To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears,
And feeding on disquiet, thus disturb
The calm of Nature with our restless thoughts?'
Second Part
He spake with somewhat of a solemn tone,
But when he ended there was in his face 200
Such easy cheerfulness, a look so mild,
That for a little time it stole away
All recollection, and that simple tale
Passed from my mind like a forgotten sound.
A while on trivial things we held discourse, 205
To me soon tasteless. In my own despite
I thought or that poor woman as or one
Whom I had known and loved. He had rehearsed
Her homely tale with such familiar power,
With such an active countenance, an eye 210
So busy, that the things of which he spake
Seemed present, and, attention now relaxed,
There was a heartfelt chillness in my veins.
I rose, and turning from that breezy shade
Went out into the open air, and stood 215
To drink the comfort of the warmer sun.
Long time I had not stayed ere, looking round
Upon that tranquil ruin, I returned
And begged of the old man that for my sake
He would resume his story.
He replied, 220
It were a wantonness, and would demand
Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts
Could hold vain dalliance with the misery
Even of the dead contented thence to draw
A momentary pleasure, never marked 225
By reason, barren of all future good.
But we have known that there is often found
In mournful thoughts, and always might be found,
A power to virtue friendly; were’t not so
I am a dreamer among men, indeed 230
An idle dreamer, Tis a common tale
By moving accidents uncharactered,
A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed
In bodily form, and to the grosser sense
But ill adapted — scarcely palpable 235
To him who does not think. But at your bidding
I will proceed.
While thus it fared with them
To whom this cottage till that hapless year
Had been a blessed home» it was my chance
To travel in a country far remote; 240
And glad I was when, halting by yon gate
That leads from the green lane, again I saw
These lofty elm-trees. Long I did not rest —
With many pleasant thoughts I cheered my way
O'er the flat common. At the door arrived, 245
I knocked, and when I entered, with the hope
Of usual greeting, Margaret looked at me
A little while, then turned her head away
Speechless, and sitting down upon a chair
Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do, 250
Or how to speak to her. Poor wretch! At last
She rose from off her seat — and then, oh sir!
I cannot tell how she pronounced my name:
With fervent love, and with a face of grief
Unutterably helpless, and a look 255
That seemed to cling upon me, she enquired
If I had seen her husband. As she spake
A strange surprise and fear came to my heart,
Nor had I power to answer ere she told
That he had disappeared — just two months gone- 260
He left his house: two wretched days had passed,
And on the third by the first break of light,
Within her casement full in view she saw
A purse of gold. "I trembled at the sight",
That placed it there, And on that very day
By one, a stranger, from my husband sent,
The tidings came that he had joined a troop
Of soldiers going to a distant land.
He left me thus. Poor man, he had not heart 270
To take a farewell of me, and he feared
That I should follow with my babes, and sink
Beneath the misery of a soldier's life”.
This tale did Margaret tell with many tears,
And when she ended I had little power 275
To give her comfort, and was glad to take
Such words of hope from her own mouth as served
To cheer us both. But long we had not talked
Ere we built up a pile of better thoughts,
And with a brighter eye she looked around 280
As if she had been shedding tears of joy.
We parted. It was then the early spring;
I left her busy with her garden tools,
And well remember, o'er that fence she looked,
And, while I paced along the footway path, 285
Called our and sent a blessing after me,
With tender cheerfulness, and with a voice
That seemed the very sound of happy thoughts.
I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale
With this my weary load, in heat'and cold, 290
Through many a wood and many an open ground,
In sunshine or in shade, in wet or fair,
Now blithe, now drooping, as it might befall;
My best companions now the driving winds
And now the "trotting brooks" and whispering trees, 295
And now the music of my own sad steps,
With many a short-lived thought that passed between
And disappeared. I came this way again
Towards the wane of summer, when the wheat
Was yellow, and the sofr and bladed grass 300
Sprang up afresh and o'er the hayfield spread
Its tender green. When I had reached the door
I found that she was absent. In the shade
Where we now sit I waited her return.
Her cottage in its outward look appeared 305
As cheerful as before, in any show
Of neatness little changed — but that I thought
The honeysuckle crowded round the door
And from the wall hung down in heavier wreaths,
And knots of worthless sconecrop started out 310
Along the window's edge, and grew like weeds
Against the lower panes. I turned aside
And strolled into her garden, It was changed.
The unprofitable bindweed spread his bells
From side to side, and with unwieldy wreaths 315
Had dragged the rose from its sustaining wall
And bent it down to earth31 The border tufts,
Daisy, and thrift, and lowly camomile,
And thyme, had straggled out into the paths
Which they were used to deck.
Ere this an hour 320
Was wasted. Back I turned my restless steps,
And as I walked before the door it chanced
A stranger passed, and guessing whom I sought,
He said that she was used to ramble far.
The sun was sinking in the west, and now 325
I sat with sad impatience. From within
Her solitary infant cried aloud.
The spot though fair seemed very desolate,
The longer I remained more desolate;
And looking round I saw the corner-stones, 330
Till then unmarked, on either side the door
With dull red stains discoloured, and stuck o'er
With tufts and hairs of wool, as if the sheep
That feed upon the commons thither came
Familiarly, and found a coaching-place 335
Even at her threshold.
The house-clock struck eight:
I turned and saw her distant a few steps.
Her face was pale and thin, her figure too
Was changed. As she unlocked the door she said,
"It grieves me you have waited here so long, 340
But in good truth I've wandered much of late,
And sometimes — to my shame I speak — have need
Of my best prayers to bring me back again."
While on the board she spread our evening meal
She told me she had lost her elder child, 345
That he for months had been a serving-boy,
Apprenticed by the parish, — "I perceive
You look at me, and you have cause. Today
I have been travelling far, and many days
About the fields I wander, knowing this 350
Only, that what I seek I cannot find.
And so I waste my time: for I am changed,
And to myself, said she, "have done much wrong,
And to this helpless infant, I have slept
Weeping, and weeping I have waked. My tears 355
Have flowed as if my body were nut such
As others are, and I could never die.
But I am now in mind and in my heart
More easy, and I hope", said she, "that Heaven
Will give me patience to endure the things 360
Which I behold at home."
Second Part (2)
It would have grieved
Your very soul to see her. Sir, I reel
The story linger in my heart. I fear
Tis long and tedious, but my spirit clings
To that poor woman. So familiarly 365
Do I perceive her manner and her look
And presence, and so deeply do I feel
Her goodness, that not seldom in my walks
A momentary trance comes over me
And to myself 1 seem to muse on one 370
By sorrow laid asleep or borne away,
A human being destined to awake
To human life, or something very near
To human life, when he shall come again
For whom she suffered. Sir, it would have grieved 375
Your very soul to see her: evermore
Her eyelids drooped, her eyes were downward cast.
And when she at her table gave me food
She did not look at me. Her voice was low,
Her body was subdued. In every act 380
Pertaining to her house-aftairs appeared
The careless stillness which a thinking mind
Gives to an idle matter. Still she sighed,
But yet no motion of the breast was seen,
No heaving of the heart. While by the fire 385
We sat together, sighs came on my ear —
I knew not how, and hardly whence, they came.
I took my staff, and when I kissed her babe
The tears stood in her eyes. I left her then
With the best hope and comfort 1 could give: 390
She thanked me for my will, but for my hope
It seemed she did not thank me.
I returned
And took my rounds along this road again
Ere on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Had chronicled the earliest day of spring. 395
I found her sad and drooping. She had learned.
No tidings of her husband. If he lived,
She knew not that he lived: if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seemed the same
In person or appearance, but her house 400
Bespoke a sleepy hand of negligence,
The floor was neither dry nor neat, the hearth
Was comfortless,
The windows too were dim, and her few books
Which one upon the other heretofore 405
Had been piled up against the corner-panes
In seemly order, now with straggling leaves
Lay scattered here and there, open or shut,
As they had chanced со fall. Her infant babe
Had from its mother caught the trick36 of grief, 410
And sighed among its playthings. Once again
I turned towards the garden-gate, and saw
More plainly still that poverty and grief
Were now come nearer to her. The earth was hard,
With weeds defaced and knots of withered grass; 415
No ridges there appeared of clear black mould37
No winter greenness. Of her herbs and flowers
It seemed the better pare were gnawed away
Or trampled on the earth. A chain of straw,
Which had been twisted round the tender stem 420
Of a young apple-tree, lay at its root;
The bark was nibbled round by truant sheep.
Margaret stood near, her infant in her arms,
And, seeing that my eye was on the tree,
Ere Robert come again."
Towards the house
Together we returned, and she enquired
If I had any hope. But for her babe,
And for her little friendless boy, she said,
She had no wish to live — that she must die 430
Of sorrow. Yet I saw the idle loom
Still in its place. His Sunday garments hung
Upon the self-same nail, his very staff
Stood undisturbed behind the door. And when
I passed this way beaten by autumn winds, 435
She told me that her little babe was dead
And she was left alone. That very time,
I yet remember, through the miry lane
She walked with me a mile, when the bare trees
Trickled with foggy damps, and in such sort 440
That any heart had ached to hear her, begged
That wheresoe'er I went I still would ask
For him whom she had lost. We parted then,
Our final parting; for from that time forth
Did many seasons pass ere I returned 445
Into this tract again.
Five tedious year
She lingered in unquiet widowhood,
A wife and widow. Needs must it have been
A sore heart-wasting. I have heard, my friend,
That in that broken arbour she would sit 450
The idle length of half a sabbath day —
There, where you see the toadstool's lazy head —
And when a dog passed by she still would quit
The shade and look abroad. On this old bench
For hours she sat, and evermore her eye 455
Was busy in the distance, shaping things
Which made her heart beat quick, Seest thou that path? —
The greensward now has broken its grey line —
There to and fro she paced through many a day
Of the warm summer, from a belt of flax 460
That girt her waist, spinning the long-drawn thread
With backward steps. Yet ever as there passed
A man whose garments showed the soldier's red
Or crippled mendicant in sailor's garb,
The little child who sat to turn the wheel 465
Ceased from his toil, and she, with faltering voice,
Expecting still to learn her husband's fate
Made many a fond enquiry; and when they
Whose presence gave no comfort were gone by,
Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate 470
Which bars the traveller's road, she often stood,
And when a stranger horseman came, the latch
Would lift, and in his face look wistfully,
Most happy if from aught discovered there
Of tender feeling she might dare repeat 475
The same sad question.
Meanwhile her poor hut
Sunk to decay; for he was gone, whose hand
At the first nippings of October frost
Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw
Chequered the green-grown thatch. And so she lived 480
Through the long winter, reckless and atone,
Till this reft house, by frost, and thaw, and rain,
Was sapped; and when she slept, the nightly damps
Did chill her breast, and in the stormy day
Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind 485
Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still
She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds
Have parted hence; and still that length of road,
And this rude bench, one torturing hope endeared,
Fast rooted at her heart. And here, my friend, 490
In sickness she remained; and here she died,
Last human tenant of these ruined walls