Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/39

31 A little—yet a little—and old Walter,

They left to him the family heart, and land

With other burthens than the crop it bore.

Year after year the old man still preserv'd

A chearful mind, and buffeted with bond,

Interest and mortgages; at last he sank,

And went into his grave before his time.

Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurr'd him

God only knows, but to the very last

He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale:

His pace was never that of an old man:

I almost see him tripping down the path

With his two Grandsons after him—but you,

Unless our Landlord be your host to-night,

Have far to travel, and in these rough paths

Even in the longest day of midsummer—

LEONARD.

But these two Orphans!

PRIEST.

Orphans! such they were—