Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/214

206 Which going by from year to year had found

And left the Couple neither gay perhaps

Nor chearful, yet with objects and with hopes

Living a life of eager industry.

And now, when was in his eighteenth year,

There by the light of this old lamp they sate,

Father and Son, while late into the night

The House-wife plied her own peculiar work,

Making the cottage thro' the silent hours

Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.

Not with a waste of words, but for the sake

Of pleasure, which I know that I shall give

To many living now, I of this Lamp

Speak thus minutely: for there are no few

Whose memories will bear witness to my tale.

The Light was famous in its neighbourhood,

And was a public Symbol of the life,

The thrifty Pair had liv'd. For, as it chanc'd,

Their Cottage on a plot of rising ground