Michael A Pastoral Poem

.  If from the public way you turn your steps    Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head 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 around that boisterous brook    The mountains have all opened out themselves,    And made a hidden valley of their own.    No habitation can be seen; but they   Who 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   Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones!   And to that simple object appertains   A story—unenriched with strange events,   Yet not unfit,

I deem, for the fireside,   Or for the summer shade.

It was the first   Of those domestic 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 had he learned the meaning of all winds,   Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes,   When others heeded not, he heard the South   Make subterraneous music, like the noise   Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.   The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock   Bethought him, and he to himself would say,   "The winds are now devising work for me!"   And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives   The traveller to a shelter, summoned him   Up to the mountains: he had been alone   Amid the heart of many thousand mists,    That came to him, and left him, on the heights.   So lived he till his eightieth year was past.   And grossly that man errs, who should suppose   That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,   Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.   Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed   The common air; hills, which with vigorous step   He had so often climbed; which had impressed   So many incidents upon his mind   Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;   Which, like a book, preserved the memory   Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved,   Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts   The certainty of honourable gain;   Those fields, those hills—what could they less? had laid   Strong hold on his affections, were to him   A pleasurable feeling of blind love,   The pleasure which there is in life itself .       His days had not been passed in singleness.   His Helpmate was a comely matron, old—   Though younger than himself full twenty years.   She was a woman of a stirring life,   Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had   Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool;   That small, for flax; and, if one wheel had rest,   It was because the other was at work.   The Pair had but one inmate in their house,   An only Child, who had been born to them   When Michael, telling o'er his years, began   To deem that he was old,—in shepherd's phrase,   With one foot in the grave.

This only Son,   With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,   The one of an inestimable worth,   Made all their household.

I may truly say,   That they were as a proverb in the vale   For endless industry.

When day was gone,   And from their occupations out of doors   The Son and Father were come home, even then,   Their labour did not cease; unless when all   Turned to the cleanly supper-board, and there,  Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk,  Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes,  And their plain home-made cheese.

Yet when the meal  Was ended,

Luke (for so the Son was named)  And his old Father both betook themselves  To such convenient work as might employ  Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card  Wool for the Housewife's spindle, or repair  Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,  Or other implement of house or field.     Down from the ceiling, by the chimney's edge,  That in our ancient uncouth country style  With huge and black projection overbrowed  Large space beneath, as duly as the light  Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a lamp,  An aged utensil, which had performed  Service beyond all others of its kind.  Early at evening did it burn—and late,  Surviving comrade of uncounted hours,  Which, going by from year to year, had found,  And left the couple neither gay perhaps  Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes,  Living a life of eager industry.  And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year,  There by the light of this old lamp they sate,  Father and Son, while far into the night  The Housewife plied her own peculiar work,  Making the cottage through the silent hours  Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.  This light was famous in its neighbourhood,  And was a public symbol of the life  That thrifty Pair had lived.

For, as it chanced,  Their cottage on a plot of rising ground  Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,  High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise,  And westward to the village near the lake;  And from this constant light, so regular  And so far seen, the House itself, by all  Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,  Both old and young, was named The Evening Star.     Thus living on through such a length of years,  The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs  Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael's heart  This son of his old age was yet more dear—  Less from instinctive tenderness, the same  Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all—  Than that a child, more than all other gifts  That earth can offer to declining man,  Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,  And stirrings of inquietude, when they  By tendency of nature needs must fail.  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 pastime and delight, as is the use  Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced  To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked  His cradle, as 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  Wrought in the field, or on his shepherd's stool  Sate with a fettered sheep before him stretched  Under the large old oak, that near his door  Stood single, and, from matchless depth of shade,  Chosen for the Shearer's covert from the sun,  Thence in our rustic dialect was called  The Clipping Tree, a name which yet it bears.  There, while they two were sitting in the shade,  With others round them, earnest all and blithe,  Would Michael exercise his heart with looks  Of fond correction and reproof bestowed  Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep  By catching at their legs, or with his shouts  Scared them, while they lay still beneath the shears.     And when by Heaven's good grace the boy grew up  A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek  Two steady roses that were five years old;  Then Michael from a winter coppice cut  With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped  With iron, making it throughout in all  Due requisites a perfect shepherd's staff,  And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipt  He as a watchman oftentimes was placed  At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock;  And, to his office prematurely called,  There stood the urchin, as you will divine,  Something between a hindrance and a help,  And for this cause not always,

I believe,  Receiving from his Father hire of praise;  Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice,  Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform.     But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand  Against the mountain blasts; and to the heights,  Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,  He with his Father daily went, and they  Were as companions, why should I relate  That objects which the Shepherd loved before  Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came  Feelings and emanations—things which were  Light to the sun and music to the wind;  And that the old Man's heart seemed born again?     Thus in his Father's sight the Boy grew up:  And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year,  He was his comfort and his daily hope.     While in this sort the simple household lived  From day to day, to Michael's ear there came  Distressful tidings.

Long before the time  Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound  In surety for his brother's son, a man  Of an industrious life, and ample means;  But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly  Had prest upon him; and old Michael now  Was summoned to discharge the forfeiture,  A grievous penalty, but little less  Than half his substance.

This unlooked-for claim  At the first hearing, for a moment took  More hope out of his life than he supposed  That any old man ever could have lost.  As soon as he had armed himself with strength  To look his trouble in the face, it seemed  The Shepherd's sole resource to sell at once  A portion of his patrimonial fields.  Such was his first resolve; he thought again,  And his heart failed him. "Isabel," said he,  Two evenings after he had heard the news,  "I have been toiling more than seventy years,  And in the open sunshine of God's love  Have we all lived; yet, if these fields of ours  Should pass into a stranger's hand,

I think  That I could not lie quiet in my grave.  Our lot is a hard lot; the sun himself  Has scarcely been more diligent than I;  And I have lived to be a fool at last  To my own family.

An evil man  That was, and made an evil choice, if he  Were false to us; and, if he were not false,  There are ten thousand to whom loss like this  Had been no sorrow.

I forgive him;—but  'Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.     "When I began, my purpose was to speak  Of remedies and of a cheerful hope.  Our Luke shall leave us,

Isabel; the land  Shall not go from us, and it shall be free;  He shall possess it, free as is the wind  That passes over it.

We have, thou know'st,  Another kinsman—he will be our friend  In this distress.

He is a prosperous man,  Thriving in trade and Luke to him shall go,  And with his kinsman's help and his own thrift  He quickly will repair this loss, and then  He may return to us.

If here he stay,  What can be done?

Where every one is poor,  What can be gained?"       At this the old Man paused,  And Isabel sat silent, for her mind  Was busy, looking back into past times.  There's Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,  He was a parish-boy—at the church-door  They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence,  And halfpennies, wherewith the neighbours bought  A basket, which they filled with pedlar's wares;  And, with this basket on his arm, the lad  Went up to London, found a master there,  Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy  To go and overlook his merchandise  Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich,  And left estates and monies to the poor,  And, at his birth-place, built a chapel floored  With marble, which he sent from foreign lands.  These thoughts, and many others of like sort,  Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel,  And her face brightened.

The old Man was glad,  And thus resumed:—"Well,

Isabel! this scheme  These two days has been meat and drink to me.  Far more than we have lost is left us yet.  —We have enough—I wish indeed that I  Were younger;—but this hope is a good hope.  Make ready Luke's best garments, of the best  Buy for him more, and let us send him forth  To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:  —If he  could go, the boy should go to-night."     Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth  With a light heart.

The Housewife for five days  Was restless morn and night, and all day long  Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare.  Things needful for the journey of her Son.  But Isabel was glad when Sunday came  To stop her in her work: for, when she lay  By Michael's side, she through the last two nights  Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:  And when they rose at morning she could see  That all his hopes were gone.

That day at noon  She said to Luke, while they two by themselves  Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go:  We have no other Child but thee to lose,  None to remember—do not go away,  For if thou leave thy Father he will die."  The Youth made answer with a jocund voice;  And Isabel, when she had told her fears,  Recovered heart.

That evening her best fare  Did she bring forth, and all together sat  Like happy people round a Christmas fire.     With daylight Isabel resumed her work;  And all the ensuing week the house appeared  As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length  The expected letter from their kinsman came,  With kind assurances that he would do  His utmost for the welfare of the Boy;  To which requests were added, that forthwith  He might be sent to him.

Ten times or more  The letter was read over,

Isabel  Went forth to show it to the neighbours round;  Nor was there at that time on English land  A prouder heart than Luke's.

When Isabel  Had to her house returned, the old man said,  "He shall depart to-morrow." To this word  The Housewife answered, talking much of things  Which, if at such short notice he should go,  Would surely be forgotten.

But at length  She gave consent, and Michael was at ease.     Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,  In that deep valley,

Michael had designed  To build a Sheep-fold; and, before he heard  The tidings of his melancholy loss,  For this same purpose he had gathered up  A heap of stones, which by the streamlet's edge  Lay thrown together, ready for the work.  With Luke that evening thitherward he walked:  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; 'twill do thee good  When thou art from me, even if I should touch  On things thou canst not know of.—After thou  First cam'st into the world—as oft 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 fireside  First uttering, without words, a natural tune;  While 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,  As well thou knowest, in us the old and young  Have played together, nor with me didst thou  Lack any pleasure which a boy can know."  Luke had a manly heart; but at these words  He sobbed aloud.

The old Man grasped his hand,  And said, "Nay, do not take it so—I see  That these are things of which I need not speak.  —Even to the utmost I have been to thee  A kind and a good Father: and herein  I but repay a gift which I myself  Received at others' hands; for, though now old  Beyond the common life of man,

I still  Remember them who loved me in my youth.  Both of them sleep together: here they lived,  As all their Forefathers had done; and, when  At length their time was come, they were not loth  To give their bodies to the family mould.  I wished that thou should'st live the life they lived:  But, 'tis a long time to look back, my Son,  And see so little gain from threescore years.  These fields were burthened when they came to me;  Till I was forty years of age, not more  Than half of my inheritance was mine.  I toiled and toiled;

God blessed me in my work,  And till these three weeks past the land was free.  —It looks as if it never could endure  Another Master.

Heaven forgive me,

Luke,  If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good  That thou should'st go."       At this the old Man paused;  Then, pointing to the stones near which they stood,  Thus, after a short silence, he resumed:  "This was a work for us; and now, my Son,  It is a work for me.

But, lay one stone—  Here, lay it for me,

Luke, with thine own hands.  Nay,

Boy, be of good hope;—we both may live  To see a better day.

At eighty-four  I still am strong and hale;—do thou thy part;  I will do mine.—I will begin again  With many tasks that were resigned to thee:  Up to the heights, and in among the storms,  Will I without thee go again, and do  All works which I was wont to do alone,  Before I knew thy face.—Heaven bless thee,

Boy!  Thy heart these two weeks has been beating fast  With many hopes; it should be so—yes—yes—  I knew that thou could'st never have a wish  To leave me,

Luke: thou hast been bound to me  Only by links of love: when thou art gone,  What will be left to us!—But,

I forget  My purposes.

Lay now the corner-stone,  As I requested; and hereafter,

Luke,  When thou art gone away, should evil men  Be thy companions, think of me, my Son,  And of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts,  And God will strengthen thee: amid all fear  And all temptation,

Luke,

I pray that thou  May'st bear in mind the life thy Fathers lived,  Who, being innocent, did for that cause  Bestir them in good deeds.

Now, fare thee well—  When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see  A work which is not here: a covenant  'Twill be between us; but, whatever fate  Befall thee,

I shall love thee to the last,  And bear thy memory with me to the grave."     The Shepherd ended here; and Luke stooped down,  And, as his Father had requested, laid  The first stone of the Sheep-fold.

At the sight  The old Man's grief broke from him; to his heart  He pressed his Son, he kissed him and wept;  And to the house together they returned.  —Hushed was that House in peace, or seeming peace,  Ere the night fell:—with morrow's dawn the Boy  Began his journey, and, when he had reached  The public way, he put on a bold face;  And all the neighbours, as he passed their doors,  Came forth with wishes and with farewell prayers,  That followed him till he was out of sight.  A good report did from their Kinsman come,  Of Luke and his well-doing; and the Boy  Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news,  Which, as the Housewife phrased it, were throughout  "The prettiest letters that were ever seen."  Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts.  So, many months passed on: and once again  The Shepherd went about his daily work  With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now  Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour  He to that valley took his way, and there  Wrought at the Sheep-fold.

Meantime Luke began  To slacken in his duty; and, at length,  He in the dissolute city gave himself  To evil courses: ignominy and shame  Fell on him, so that he was driven at last  To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas.     There is a comfort in the strength of love;  'Twill make a thing endurable, which else  Would overset the brain, or break the heart:  I have conversed with more than one who well  Remember the old Man, and what he was  Years after he had heard this heavy news.  His bodily frame had been from youth to age  Of an unusual strength.

Among the rocks  He went, and still looked up to sun and cloud,  And listened to the wind; and, as before,  Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep,  And for the land, his small inheritance.  And to that hollow dell from time to time  Did he repair, to build the Fold of which  His flock had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet  The pity which was then in every heart  For the old Man—and 'tis believed by all  That many and many a day he thither went,  And never lifted up a single stone.     There, by the Sheep-fold, sometimes was he seen  Sitting alone, or with his faithful Dog,  Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.  The length of full seven years, from time to time,  He at the building of this Sheep-fold wrought,  And left the work unfinished when he died.  Three years, or little more, did Isabel  Survive her Husband: at her death the estate  Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand.  The Cottage which was named The Evening Star  Is gone—the ploughshare has been through the ground  On which it stood; great changes have been wrought  In all the neighbourhood:—yet the oak is left  That grew beside their door; and the remains  Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen  Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll.

Form:

Composition Date:18001.

Concerning the poem Wordsworth says: "Michael was founded on the son of an old couple having become dissolute, and run away from his parents; and on an old shepherd having been seven years in building up a sheepfold in a solitary valley." Again, "I have attempted to give a picture of a man of strong mind and lively sensibility, agitated by two of the most powerful affections of the human heart,--parental affection and the love of property, landed property, including the feelings of inheritance, home, and personal and family independence." To Charles James Fox he wrote: "In the two poems,

The Brothers and Michael,

I have attempted to draw a picture of the domestic affections, as I know they exist among a class of men who are now almost confined to the north of England.

They are small independent proprietors of land, here called 'states-men,' men of respectable education, who daily labour on their own little properties.

The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who live in a country not crowded with population; if these men are placed above poverty.

But, if they are proprietors of small estates which have descended to them from their ancestors, the power which these affections will acquire amongst such men, is inconceivable by those who have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, farmers and the manufacturing poor.

Their little tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet on which they are written, which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances, when they would otherwise be forgotten....

The two poems that I have mentioned were written with a view to show that men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply." In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal,

Oct. 11, 1800: "After dinner we walked up Greenhead Gill in search of a sheepfold." She described the ruined sheepfold, and on several occasions that autumn mentioned that her brother had gone there to work at his poem.2.

Ghyll.

In Westmoreland and Cumberland, this word signifies a steep and narrow valley with a stream running through it.

Greenhead Ghyll rises eastward from the village of Grasmere.115.utensil.

Wordsworth puts the stress on the first syllable.134.

Dunmail-Raise: the pass from Grasmere to Keswick.258-270.

Richard Bateman was a real person\; a chapel at Ings between Kendal and Ambleside, was rebuilt by him in 1743.