Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/40

32 Yet not while Walter liv'd—for, though their Parents

Lay buried side by side as now they lie,

The old Man was a father to the boys,

Two fathers in one father: and if tears

Shed, when he talk'd of them where they were not,

And hauntings from the infirmity of love,

Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart,

This old Man in the day of his old age

Was half a mother to them.—If you weep, Sir,

To hear a stranger talking about strangers,

Heaven bless you when you are among your kindred!

Aye. You may turn that way—it is a grave

Which will bear looking at.

LEONARD.

These Boys I hope

They lov'd this good old Man—

PRIEST.

They did—and truly,

But that was what we almost overlook'd,