Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/160

100 Was rent with lightning—one is dead and gone,

The other, left behind, is flowing still.

For accidents and changes such as these,

We want not store of them!—a water-spout

Will bring down half a mountain; what a feast

For folks that wander up and down like you

To see an acre's breadth of that wide cliff

One roaring cataract!—a sharp May-storm

Will come with loads of January snow,

And in one night send twenty score of sheep

To feed the ravens; or a Shepherd dies

By some untoward death among the rocks:

The ice breaks up and sweeps away a bridge—

A wood is felled:—and then for our own homes!

A Child is born or christened, a Field ploughed,

A Daughter sent to service, a Web spun,

The old House-clock is decked with a new face;

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—