Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/278

218 And soon as they had reached the place he stopped,

And thus the Old Man spake to him:—"My Son,

To-morrow thou wilt leave me: with full heart

I look upon thee, for thou art the same

That wert a promise to me ere thy birth,

And all thy life hast been my daily joy.

I will relate to thee some little part

Of our two histories; 't will do thee good

When thou art from me, even if I should speak

Of things thou canst not know of.After thou

First cam'st into the world—as it befalls

To new-born infants—thou didst sleep away

Two days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue

Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on,

And still I loved thee with increasing love.

Never to living ear came sweeter sounds

Than when I heard thee by our own fire-side

First uttering, without words, a natural tune;

When thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy

Sing at thy Mother's breast. Month followed month,

And in the open fields my life was passed

And on the mountains, else I think that thou

Hadst been brought up upon thy Father's knees.

But we were playmates, Luke: among these hills,