Page:The Recluse, Wordsworth, 1888.djvu/38

26 Favoured by noble privilege like this,

Where kindred independence of estate

Is prevalent, where he who tills the field,

He, happy man! is master of the field,

And treads the mountains which his Fathers trod.

Not less than halfway up yon mountain's side,

Behold a dusky spot, a grove of Firs

That seems still smaller than it is; this grove

Is haunted—by what ghost? a gentle spirit

Of memory faithful to the call of love;

For, as reports the Dame, whose fire sends up

Yon curling smoke from the grey cot below,

The trees (her first-born child being then a babe)

Were planted by her husband and herself,

That ranging o'er the high and houseless ground

Their sheep might neither want from perilous storm