Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/36

28 And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates

To chronicle the time, we all have here

A pair of diaries, one serving, Sir,

For the whole dale, and one for each fire-side,

Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians

Commend me to these vallies.

LEONARD.

Yet your church-yard

Seems, if such freedom may be used with you,

To say that you are heedless of the past.

Here's neither head nor foot-stone, plate of brass,

Cross-bones or skull, type of our earthly state

Or emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home

Is but a fellow to that pasture field.

PRIEST.

Why there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me.

The Stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread

If every English church-yard were like ours:

Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth.