Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/204

144 I sold a sheep, as they had said,

And bought my little children bread,

And they were healthy with their food;

For me—it never did me good.

A woeful time it was for me,

To see the end of all my gains,

The pretty flock which I had reared

With all my care and pains,

To see it melt like snow away!

For me it was a woeful day.

Another still! and still another!

A little lamb, and then its mother!

It was a vein that never stopp'd—

Like blood-drops from my heart they dropp'd.

Till thirty were not left alive

They dwindled, dwindled, one by one,

And I may say, that many a time

I wished they all were gone:

They dwindled one by one away;

For me it was a woeful day.