Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/270

210 The dearest object that he knew on earth.

Exceeding was the love he bare to him,

His Heart and his Heart's joy! For oftentimes

Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,

Had done him female service, not alone

For dalliance and delight, as is the use

Of Fathers, but with patient mind enforced

To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked

His cradle with a woman's gentle hand.

And, in a later time, ere yet the Boy

Had put on Boy's attire, did Michael love,

Albeit of a stern unbending mind,

To have the young one in his sight, when he

Had work by his own door, or when he sat

With sheep before him on his Shepherd's stool,

Beneath that large old Oak, which near their door

Stood,—and, from its enormous breadth of shade

Chosen for the Shearer's covert from the sun,

Thence in our rustic dialect was called

The, a name which yet it bears.

There, while they two were sitting in the shade,