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

THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS

Composed 1799.--Published 1800

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."--Ed.

We walked along, while bright and red

Uprose the morning sun;

And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,

"The will of God be done!"

A village schoolmaster was he,

With hair of glittering grey;

As blithe a man as you could see

On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,

And by the steaming rills,

We travelled merrily, to pass

A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, "was well begun,

Then, from thy breast what thought,

Beneath so beautiful a sun, 

So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;

And fixing still his eye

Upon the eastern mountain-top,

To me he made reply:

"Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind

A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn

Such colours, and no other,

Were in the sky, that April morn,

Of this the very brother. [1]

"With rod and line I sued the sport

Which that sweet season gave, [2]

And, to the church-yard come, [3] stopped short