She listens, but she cannot hear
The foot of horse, the voice of man ;
The streams with softest sounds are flowing,
The grass you almost hear it growing,
You hear it now if e'er you can.
The owlets through the long blue night
Are shouting to each other still:
Fond lovers! yet not quite hob-nob,
They lengthen out the tremulous sob
That echoes far from hill to hill.
Poor Betty now has lost all hope,
Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin:
A green-grown pond she just has passed,
And from the brink she hurries fast,
Lest she should drown herself therein.
And now she sits her down and weeps;
Such tears she never shed before;
"Oh dear, dear pony! my sweet joy!
Oh carry back my Idiot Boy!
And we will ne'er o'erload thee more."
A thought is come into her head:
"The pony he is mild and good,
And we have always used him well
Perhaps he's gone along the dell,
And carried Johnie to the wood."
Then up she springs as if on wings;
She thinks no more of deadly sin;
If Betty fifty ponds should see,
The last of all her thoughts would be
To drown herself therein.
O reader! now that I might tell
What Johnie and his horse are doing!
What they've been doing all this time,
Oh could I put it into rhyme,
A most delightful tale pursuing !
Perhaps, and no unlikely thought!
He with his pony now doth roam
The cliffs and peaks so high that are,
To lay his hands upon a star,
And in his pocket bring it home.
Perhaps he's turned himself about,
His face unto his horse's tail,
And, still and mute, in wonder lost,
All like a silent horseman ghost,
He travels on along the vale.
And now, perhaps, he's hunting sheep,-
A fierce and dreadful hunter he;
Yon valley, that's so trim and green,
In five months' time, should he be seen,
A desert wilderness will be !
Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,
And like the very soul of evil,
He's galloping away, away;
And so he'll gallop on for aye,
The bane of all that dread the devil!
I to the Muses have been bound
These fourteen years, by strong indentures; O gentle Muses! let me tell
But half of what to him befell,
He surely met with strange adventures.
O gentle Muses! is this kind?
Why will ye thus my suit repel ?
Why of your further aid bereave me?
And can ye thus unfriended leave me ;
Ye Muses! whom I love so well?
Who's yon, that, near the waterfall,
Which thunders down with headlong force,
Beneath the moon yet shining fair,
As careless as if nothing were,
Sits upright on a feeding horse?
Unto his horse, that's feeding free,
He seems, I think, the rein to give;
Of moon or stars he takes no heed;
Of such we in romances read:
'Tis Johnie! Johnie, as I live!
And that's the very pony too!
Where is she, where is Betty Foy?
She hardly can sustain her fears;
The roaring waterfall she hears,
And cannot find her Idiot Boy.
Your pony's worth his weight in gold:
Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!
She's coming from among the trees,
And now all full in view she sees
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.
And Betty sees the pony too.
Why stand you thus, good Betty Foy?
It is no goblin, 'tis no ghost,
'Tis he whom you so long have lost,
He whom you love, your Idiot Boy.
She looks again-her arms are up-
She screams-she cannot move for joy:
She darts as with a torrent's force,
She almost has o'erturned the horse,
And fast she holds her Idiot Boy.
And Johnie burrs, and laughs aloud,
Whether in cunning or in joy
I cannot tell; but while he laughs
Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs
To hear again her Idiot Boy.
And now she's at the pony's tail,
And now she's at the pony's head,—
On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss,
A few sad tears does Betty shed.
She kisses o'er and o'er again
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy;
She's happy here, she's happy there,
She is uneasy everywhere;
Her limbs are all alive with joy.
"Oh! Johnie, never mind the doctor; You've done your best, and that is all. She took the reins, when this was said, And gently turned the pony's head From the loud waterfall.
By this the stars were almost gone,
The moon was setting on the hill,
So pale you scarcely looked at her:
The little birds began to stir,
Though yet their tongues were still.
The pony, Betty, and her boy,
Wind slowly through the woody dale;
And who is she, betimes abroad,
That hobbles up the steep, rough road?
Who is it, but old Susan Gale!
Long Susan lay deep lost in thought,
And many dreadful fears beset her.
Both for her messenger and nurse;
And as her mind grew worse and worse,
Her body it grew better.
She turned, she tossed herself in bed,
On all sides doubts and terrors met her;
Point after point did she discuss
And while her mind was fighting thus,
Her body still grew better.
"Alas! what is become of them?
These fears can never be endured,
I'll to the wood."-The word scarce said,
Did Susan rise up from her bed,
As if by magic cured.
A way she posts up hill and down,
And to the wood at length is come;
She spies her friends, she shouts a greeting;
Oh me! it was a merry meeting
As ever was in Christendom.
The owls have hardly sung their last,
While our four travellers homeward wend;
The owls have hooted all night long.
And with the owls began my song,
And with the owls must end.
For, while they all were travelling home,
Cried Betty, "Tell us, Johnie, do,
Where all this long night you have been,
What you have heard, what you have seen;
And, Johnie, mind you tell us true.'
Now, Johnie all night long had heard
The owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt, too, he the moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o'clock till five.
And thus, to Betty's question, he
Made answer, like a traveller bold
(His very words I give to you),
The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
And the sun did shine so cold."
-Thus answered Johnie in his glory,
And that was all his travel's story.
Ir from the public way you turn your steps
Up to the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for beside that boist'rous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation there is seen; but such
As journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude;
Nor should I have made mention of this dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that place a story appertains,
Which, though it be ungarnished with events,
Is not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first,
The earliest of those tales that spake to me
Of shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
Whom I already loved-not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.
And hence this tale, while I was yet a boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
At random and imperfectly, indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts;
And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful poets, who among these hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.
Upon the forest side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name;
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His bodily frame had been, from youth to age,
Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen,
Intense and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
Hence he had learned the meaning of all winds,
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