The Excursion (Wordsworth)

Front matter

THE

EXCURSION.

BEING A PORTION OF

Book 1

THE

EXCURSION.

BOOK FIRST.

THE WANDERER.

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high: Southward, the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs, In clearest air ascending, shew'd far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows, flung From many a brooding cloud; far as the sight Could reach, those many shadows lay in spots Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed. Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss Extends his careless limbs along the front Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts A twilight of its own, an ample shade, Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming Man, Half conscious of the soothing melody, With side-long eye looks out upon the scene, By that impending covert made more soft, More low and distant! Other lot was mine; Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy. Across a bare wide Common I was toiling With languid feet, which by the slippery ground Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.

Upon that open level stood a Grove, The wished-for Port to which my steps were bound. Thither I came, and there—amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms— Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other! I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied Him whom I sought; a Man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. There was he seen upon the Cottage bench, Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep; An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I marked the day before—alone And in the middle of the public way Stationed, as if to rest himself, with face Turned tow'rds the sun then setting, while that staff Afforded to his Figure, as he stood, Detained for contemplation or repose, Graceful support; the countenance of the Man Was hidden from my view, and he himself Unrecognized; but, stricken by the sight, With slackened footsteps I advanced, and soon A glad congratulation we exchanged At such unthought-of meeting.—For the night We parted, nothing willingly; and now He by appointment waited for me here, Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.

We were tried Friends: I from my Childhood up Had known him.—In a little Town obscure, A market-village, seated in a tract Of mountains, where my school-day time was pass'd, One room he owned, the fifth part of a house, A place to which he drew, from time to time, And found a kind of home or harbour there.

He loved me; from a swarm of rosy Boys Singled out me, as he in sport would say, For my grave looks—too thoughtful for my years. As I grew up it was my best delight To be his chosen Comrade. Many a time, On holidays, we wandered through the woods, A pair of random travellers; we sate— We walked; he pleas'd me with his sweet discourse Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind Turned inward; or at my request he sang Old songs—the product of his native hills; A skilful distribution of sweet sounds, Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed As cool refreshing Water, by the care Of the industrious husbandman, diffused Through a parched meadow-ground, in time of drought. Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse; How precious when in riper days I learn'd To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity!

Oh! many are the Poets that are sown By Nature; Men endowed with highest gifts, BiographiaLiterariav1p244The vision and the faculty divine, Yet wanting the accomplishment of Verse, (Which in the docile season of their youth It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and the inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame), Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favored Beings, All but a scattered few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this Man had not left His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed. But, as the mind was filled with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honoured—far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech, And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness, The doings, observations, which his mind Had dealt with—I will here record in verse; Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink Or rise, as venerable Nature leads, The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased, And listening Time reward with sacred praise.

Among the hills of Athol he was born: There, on a small hereditary Farm, An unproductive slip of rugged ground, His Father dwelt; and died in poverty; While He, whose lowly fortune I retrace, The youngest of three sons, was yet a babe, A little One—unconscious of their loss. But ere he had outgrown his infant days His widowed Mother, for a second Mate, Espoused the Teacher of the Village School; Who on her offspring zealously bestowed Needful instruction; not alone in arts Which to his humble duties appertained, But in the lore of right and wrong, the rule Of human kindness, in the peaceful ways Of honesty, and holiness severe. A virtuous Household though exceeding poor! Pure Livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God; the very Children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, And an habitual piety, maintained With strictness scarcely known on English ground.

From his sixth year, the Boy of whom I speak, In summer, tended cattle on the Hills; But, through the inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repaired To his Step-father's 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, with no one 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 impress'd Great objects on his mind, with portraiture And colour so distinct, that on his mind They lay like substances, and almost seemed To haunt the bodily sense. He had received (Vigorous in native genius as he was) A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, With these impressions would he still compare All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms; And, being still unsatisfied with aught Of dimmer character, he thence attained An active power to fasten images Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail, While yet a Child, with a Child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye On all things which the moving seasons brought To feed such appetite: nor this alone Appeased his yearning:—in the after day Of Boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn, And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags He sate, and even in their fix'd lineaments, Or from the power of a peculiar eye, Or by creative feeling overborne, Or by predominance of thought oppress'd, Even in their fix'd and steady lineaments He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind, Expression ever varying! Thus informed, He had small need of books; for many a Tale Traditionary, round the mountains hung, And many a Legend, peopling the dark woods, Nourished Imagination in her growth, And gave the Mind that apprehensive power By which she is made quick to recognize The moral properties and scope of things. But eagerly he read, and read again, Whate'er the Minister's old Shelf supplied; The life and death of Martyrs, who sustained, With will inflexible, those fearful pangs Triumphantly displayed in records left Of Persecution, and the Covenant—Times Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour! And there by lucky hap had been preserved A straggling volume, torn and incomplete, That left half-told the preternatural tale, Romance of Giants, chronicle of Fiends Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-knee'd, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks—forms which once seen Could never be forgotten! In his heart Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air, Or by the silent looks of happy things, Or flowing from the universal face Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power Of Nature, and already was prepared, By his intense conceptions, to receive Deeply the lesson deep of love which he, Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

From early childhood, even, as hath been said, From his sixth year, he had been sent abroad In summer to tend herds: such was his task Thenceforward 'till the later day of youth. O then what soul was his, when, on the tops Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked— Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd, And in their silent faces did he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none. Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form All melted into him; they swallowed up His animal being; in them did he live, And by them did he live; they were his life. In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!

A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops, Such intercourse was his, and in this sort Was his existence oftentimes possessed. Oh then how beautiful, how bright appeared The written Promise! He had early learned To reverence the Volume which displays The mystery, the life which cannot die: But in the mountains did he feel his faith; There did he see the writing;—all things there Breathed immortality, revolving life And greatness still revolving; infinite; There littleness was not; the least of things Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped Her prospects, nor did he believe,—he saw. What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude, Oft as he called those extacies to mind, And whence they flowed; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works through patience; thence he learned In many a calmer hour of sober thought To look on Nature with a humble heart, Self-questioned where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love.

So passed the time; yet to a neighbouring town He duly went with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The Book which most had tempted his desires While at the Stall he read. Among the hills He gazed upon that mighty Orb of Song The divine Milton. Lore of different kind, The annual savings of a toilsome life, His Step-father supplied; books that explain The purer elements of truth involved In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe, (Especially perceived where nature droops And feeling is suppressed,) preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty. These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hours, while in the hollow vale, Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf In pensive idleness. What could he do With blind endeavours, in that lonesome life, Thus thirsting daily? Yet still uppermost Nature was at his heart as if he felt, Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power In all things which from her sweet influence Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues, Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, He clothed the nakedness of austere truth. While yet he lingered in the rudiments Of science, and among her simplest laws, His triangles—they were the stars of heaven, The silent stars! Oft did he take delight To measure th' altitude of some tall crag Which is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak Familiar with forgotten years, that shews Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought, Upon it's bleak and visionary sides, The history of many a winter storm,— Or obscure records of the path of fire.

And thus, before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings pressed his heart With an increasing weight; he was o'erpower'd By Nature, by the turbulence subdued Of his own mind; by mystery and hope, And the first virgin passion of a soul Communing with the glorious Universe. Full often wished he that the winds might rage When they were silent; far more fondly now Than in his earlier season did he love Tempestuous nights—the conflict and the sounds That live in darkness:—from his intellect And from the stillness of abstracted thought He asked repose; and I have heard him say That often, failing at this time to gain The peace required, he scanned the laws of light Amid the roar of torrents, where they send From hollow clefts up to the clearer air A cloud of mist, which in the sunshine frames A lasting tablet—for the observer's eye Varying it's rainbow hues. But vainly thus, And vainly by all other means, he strove To mitigate the fever of his heart.

In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, Thus, even from Childhood upward, was he reared; For intellectual progress wanting much, Doubtless, of needful help—yet gaining more; And every moral feeling of his soul Strengthened and braced, by breathing in content The keen, the wholesome air of poverty, And drinking from the well of homely life. —But, from past liberty, and tried restraints, He now was summoned to select the course Of humble industry which promised best To yield him no unworthy maintenance. The Mother strove to make her Son perceive With what advantage he might teach a School In the adjoining Village; but the Youth, Who of this service made a short essay, Found that the wanderings of his thought were then A misery to him; that he must resign A task he was unable to perform.

That stern yet kindly spirit, Who constrains The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks, The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales, (Spirit attached to regions mountainous Like their own stedfast clouds)—did now impel His restless Mind to look abroad with hope. —An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on, Through dusty ways, in storm, from door to door, A vagrant Merchant bent beneath his load! Yet do such Travellers find their own delight; And their hard service, deemed debasing now, Gained merited respect in simpler times; When Squire, and Priest, and they who round them dwelt In rustic sequestration, all, dependant Upon the Pedlar's toil—supplied their wants, Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought. Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few Of his adventurous Countrymen were led By perseverance in this Track of life To competence and ease;—for him it bore Attractions manifold;—and this he chose. He asked his Mother's blessing; and, with tears Thanking his second Father, asked from him Paternal blessings. The good Pair bestowed Their farewell benediction, but with hearts Foreboding evil. From his native hills He wandered far; much did he see of Men, Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits, Their passions, and their feelings; chiefly those Essential and eternal in the heart, Which, mid the simpler forms of rural life, Exist more simple in their elements, And speak a plainer language. In the woods, A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields, Itinerant in this labour, he had passed The better portion of his time; and there Spontaneously had his affections thriven Upon the bounties of the year, and felt The liberty of Nature; there he kept In solitude and solitary thought His mind in a just equipoise of love. Serene it was, unclouded by the cares Of ordinary life; unvexed, unwarped By partial bondage. In his steady course No piteous revolutions had he felt, No wild varieties of joy and grief. Unoccupied by sorrow of it's own His heart lay open; and, by Nature tuned And constant disposition of his thoughts To sympathy with Man, he was alive To all that was enjoyed where'er he went; And all that was endured; for in himself Happy, and quiet in his chearfulness, He had no painful pressure from without That made him turn aside from wretchedness With coward fears. He could afford to suffer With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came That in our best experience he was rich, And in the wisdom of our daily life. For hence, minutely, in his various rounds, He had observed the progress and decay Of many minds, of minds and bodies too; The History of many Families; How they had prospered; how they were o'erthrown By passion or mischance; or such misrule Among the unthinking masters of the earth As makes the nations groan.—This active course, Chosen in youth, through manhood he pursued, Till due provision for his modest wants Had been obtained;—and, thereupon, resolved To pass the remnant of his days—untasked With needless services,—from hardship free. His Calling laid aside, he lived at ease: But still he loved to pace the public roads And the wild paths; and, when the summer's warmth Invited him, would often leave his home And journey far, revisiting those scenes Which to his memory were most endeared. —Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, untouched By worldly-mindedness or anxious care; Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refreshed By knowledge gathered up from day to day;— Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.

The Scottish Church, both on himself and those With whom from childhood he grew up, had held The strong hand of her purity; and still Had watched him with an unrelenting eye. This he remembered in his riper age With gratitude, and reverential thoughts. But by the native vigour of his mind, By his habitual wanderings out of doors, By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works, Whate'er in docile childhood or in youth He had imbibed of fear or darker thought Was melted all away: so true was this That sometimes his religion seemed to me Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods; Who to the model of his own pure heart Framed his belief, as grace divine inspired, Or human reason dictated with awe. —And surely never did there live on earth A Man of kindlier nature. The rough sports And teazing ways of Children vexed not him, Nor could he bid them from his presence, tired With questions and importunate demands: Indulgent listener was he to the tongue Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale, To his fraternal sympathy addressed, Obtain reluctant hearing.

Plain his garb Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared For sabbath duties; yet he was a Man Whom no one could have passed without remark. Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs And his whole figure breathed intelligence. Time had compressed the freshness of his cheek Into a narrower circle of deep red But had not tamed his eye; that under brows Shaggy and grey had meanings which it brought From years of youth; which, like a Being made Of many Beings, he had wondrous skill To blend with knowledge of the years to come, Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.

So was He framed; and such his course of life Who now, with no Appendage but a Staff, The prized memorial of relinquish'd toils, Upon that Cottage bench reposed his limbs, Screened from the sun. Supine the Wanderer lay, His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut, The shadows of the breezy elms above Dappling his face. He had not heard my steps As I approached; and near him did I stand Unnotic'd in the shade, some minutes' space. At length I hailed him, seeing that his hat Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim Had newly scooped a running stream. He rose, And ere the pleasant greeting that ensued Was ended, "'Tis," said I, "a burning day; My lips are parched with thirst, but you, I guess, Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word, Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb The fence hard by, where that aspiring shrub Looked out upon the road. It was a plot Of garden-ground run wild, it's matted weeds Marked with the steps of those, whom, as they pass'd, The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips, Or currants hanging from their leafless stems In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap The broken wall. I looked around, and there, Where two tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs Joined in a cold damp nook, espied a Well Shrouded with willow-flowers and plumy fern. My thirst I slaked, and from the chearless spot Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned Where sate the Old Man on the Cottage bench; And, while, beside him, with uncovered head, I yet was standing, freely to respire, And cool my temples in the fanning air, Thus did he speak. "I see around me here Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend, Nor we alone, but that which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon Even of the good is no memorial left. —The Poets, in their elegies and songs Lamenting the departed, call the groves, They call upon the hills and streams to mourn, And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak, In these their invocations, with a voice Obedient to the strong creative power Of human passion. Sympathies there are More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth, That steal upon the meditative mind, And grow with thought. Beside yon Spring I stood, And eyed its waters till we seemed to feel One sadness, they and I. For them a bond Of brotherhood is broken: time has been When, every day, the touch of human hand Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up In mortal stillness; and they minister'd To human comfort. As I stooped to drink, Upon the slimy foot-stone I espied The useless fragment of a wooden bowl, Green with the moss of years; a pensive sight That moved my heart!—recalling former days When I could never pass that road but She Who lived within these walls, at my approach, A Daughter's welcome gave me; and I loved her As my own child. O Sir! the good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket. Many a Passenger Hath blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks, When she upheld the cool refreshment drawn From that forsaken Spring; and no one came But he was welcome; no one went away But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead, The light extinguished of her lonely Hut, The Hut itself abandoned to decay, And She forgotten in the quiet grave!

"I speak," continued he, "of One whose stock Of virtues bloom'd beneath this lowly roof. She was a Woman of a steady mind, Tender and deep in her excess of love, Not speaking much, pleased rather with the joy Of her own thoughts: by some especial care Her temper had been framed, as if to make A Being—who by adding love to peace Might live on earth a life of happiness. Her wedded Partner lacked not on his side The humble worth that satisfied her heart: Frugal, affectionate, sober, and withal Keenly industrious. She with pride would tell That he was often seated at his loom, In summer, ere the Mower was abroad Among the dewy grass,—in early spring, Ere the last Star had vanished.—They who passed At evening, from behind the garden fence Might hear his busy spade, which he would ply, After his daily work, until the light Had failed, and every leaf and flower were lost In the dark hedges. So their days were spent In peace and comfort; and a pretty Boy Was their best hope,—next to the God in Heaven.

Not twenty years ago, but you I think Can scarcely bear it now in mind, there came Two blighting seasons when the fields were left With half a harvest. It pleased heaven to add A worse affliction in the plague of war; This happy Land was stricken to the heart! A Wanderer then among the Cottages I, with my freight of winter raiment, saw The hardships of that season; many rich Sank down, as in a dream, among the poor; And of the poor did many cease to be And their place knew them not. Meanwhile abridg'd Of daily comforts, gladly reconciled To numerous self-denials, Margaret Went struggling on through those calamitous years With chearful hope: but ere the second autumn Her life's true Help-mate on a sick-bed lay, Smitten with perilous fever. In disease He lingered long; and when his strength return'd, He found the little he had stored, to meet The hour of accident or crippling age, Was all consumed. Two children had they now, One newly born. As I have said, it was A time of trouble; shoals of Artisans Were from their daily labour turn'd adrift To seek their bread from public charity, They, and their wives and children—happier far Could they have lived as do the little birds That peck along the hedges, or the Kite That makes his dwelling on the mountain Rocks!

A sad reverse it was for Him who long Had filled with plenty, and possess'd in peace, This lonely 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— Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook In house or garden, any casual work Of use or ornament; and with a strange, Amusing, yet uneasy novelty, He blended, where he might, the various tasks 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, And he would leave his work—and to the Town, Without an errand, would direct 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 He toss'd them with a false unnatural joy: And 'twas a rueful 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 Wanderer paused; 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 chearful; while this multitude of flies Is filling all the air with 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, To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears, And, feeding on disquiet, thus disturb The calm of nature with our restless thoughts?"

He spake with somewhat of a solemn tone: But, when he ended, there was in his face Such easy chearfulness, 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, To me soon tasteless. In my own despite I thought of that poor Woman as of one Whom I had known and loved. He had rehearsed Her homely Tale with such familiar power, With such an active countenance, an eye So busy, that the things of which he spake Seemed present; and, attention now relax'd, There was a heart-felt chillness in my veins.— I rose; and, turning from the breezy shade, Went forth into the open air, and stood To drink the comfort of the warmer sun. Long time I had not staid, ere, looking round Upon that tranquil Ruin, I return'd, And begged of the Old Man that, for my sake, He would resume his story.— He replied, "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 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 An idle Dreamer! 'Tis a common Tale, An ordinary sorrow of Man's life, A tale of silent suffering, hardly clothed In bodily form.—But, without further bidding, I will proceed.— While thus it fared with them, To whom this Cottage, till those hapless years, Had been a blessed home, it was my chance To travel in a Country far remote. And glad I was, when, halting by yon gate That leads from the green lane, once more I saw These lofty elm-trees. Long I did not rest: With many pleasant thoughts I chear'd my way O'er the flat Common.—Having reached the door I knock'd,—and, when I entered with the hope Of usual greeting, Margaret looked at me A little while; then turn'd her head away Speechless,—and sitting down upon a chair Wept bitterly. I wist not what to do, Or how to speak to her. Poor Wretch! at last She rose from off her seat, and then,—O Sir! I cannot tell how she pronounced my name.— With fervent love, and with a face of grief Unutterably helpless, and a look That seemed to cling upon me, she enquired If I had seen her Husband. As she spake A strange surprize and fear came to my heart, Nor had I power to answer ere she told That he had disappear'd—not two months gone. He left his House: two wretched days had pass'd, And on the third, as wistfully she rais'd Her head from off her pillow, to look forth, Like one in trouble, for returning light, Within her chamber-casement she espied A folded paper, lying as if placed To meet her waking eyes. This tremblingly She open'd—found no writing, but therein Pieces of money carefully enclosed, Silver and gold.—"I shuddered at the sight," Said Margaret, "for I knew it was his hand Which placed it there: and ere that day was ended, That long and anxious day! I learned from One Sent hither by my Husband to impart The heavy news,—that he had joined a Troop Of Soldiers, going to a distant Land. —He left me thus—he could not gather heart To take a farewell of me; for he fear'd That I should follow with my Babes, and sink Beneath the misery of that wandering Life."