THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - VOL. 2 (Completed)

TO A SEXTON

Composed 1799.--Published 1800

[Written in Germany, 1799.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems of the Fancy."--Ed.

Let thy wheel-barrow alone--

Wherefore, Sexton, piling still

In thy bone-house bone on bone?

'Tis already like a hill In a field of battle made,

Where three thousand skulls are laid;

These died in peace each with the other,--

Father, sister, friend, and brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!

From this platform, eight feet square,

Take not even a finger-joint:

Andrew's whole fire-side is there.

Here, alone, before thine eyes,

Simon's sickly daughter lies,

From weakness now, and pain defended,

Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride--

How he glories, when he sees

Roses, lilies, side by side, Violets in families!

By the heart of Man, his tears,

By his hopes and by his fears,

Thou, too heedless, [1] art the

Warden Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to other dear,

Let them all in quiet lie,

Andrew there, and Susan here,

Neighbours in mortality.

And, should I live through sun and rain

Seven widowed years without my Jane,

O Sexton, do not then remove her, L

et one grave hold the Loved and Lover!

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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:1845.

Thou, old Grey-beard! ... 1800.]

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