Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/162

102 You, Sir, could help me to the history

Of half these Graves?

.

For eight-score winters past,

With what I 've witnessed, and with what I 've heard,

Perhaps I might; and, on a winter's evening,

If you were seated at my chimney's nook,

By turning o'er these hillocks one by one

We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;

Yet all in the broad high-way of the world.

Now there's a grave—your foot is half upon it,—

It looks just like the rest; and yet that Man

Died broken-hearted.

.

'Tis a common case.

We'll take another: who is he that lies

Beneath yon ridge, the last of those three graves?

It touches on that piece of native rock

Left in the church-yard wall.

.

That's Walter Ewbank.

He had as white a head and fresh a cheek

As ever were produced by youth and age

Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore.

Through five long generations had the heart