The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume IV (of 8)

Excerpt

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

Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,
And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side,
Thou art a tool of honour in my hands;
I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.
Rare master has it been thy lot to know;
Long hast Thou served a man to reason true;
Whose life combines the best of high and low,
The labouringmany and the resting few;
Health, meekness, ardour, quietness secure,
And industry of body and of mind;10
And elegant enjoyments, that are pure
As nature is;—too pure to be refined.
Here often hast Thou heard the Poet sing
In concord with his river murmuring by;
Or in some silent field, while timid spring15
Is yet uncheered by other minstrelsy.
Who shall inherit Thee when death haslaid
Low in the darksome cell thine own dear lord?
That man will have a trophy, humble Spade!
A trophy nobler than a conqueror's sword.
If he be one that feels, with skill to part
False praise from true, or, greater from the less,
Thee will he welcome to his hand and heart,
Thou monument of peaceful happiness!
He will not dread with Thee a toilsome day—
Thee his loved servant, his inspiring mate!
And, when thou art past service, worn away,
No dull oblivious nook shall hide thy fate.
His thrift thy uselessnesswill never scorn;
Anheir-loomin his cottage wilt thou be:—30
High will he hang thee up, well pleased to adorn
His rustic chimney with the last of Thee!

Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, the friend of Wordsworth and the subject of these verses, deserves more than a passing note.

He was a man
Whom no one could have passed without remark.

One of the old race of Cumbrian "Statesmen"—men who owned, and themselves cultivated, small bits of land (see Wordsworth's letter on The Brothers and Michael, vol. ii. p. 234)—he was Wordsworth's senior by nineteen years, and lived on a patrimonial farm of about forty acres, on the banks of the Emont,—the stream which, flowing out of Ullswater, divides Cumberland from Westmoreland. He was a Friend, and used to travel great distances to attend religious conferences, or engage in philanthropic work,—on one occasion riding on his pony from Yanwath to London, to the yearly meeting of the Friends; and, on another, walking the 300 miles to town, in eight days, for the same purpose. A simple, genuine nature; serene, refined, hospitable, naïve, and humorous withal; a quaint original man, with a true eye for Nature, a keen relish for rural life (especially for gardening) and a happy knack of characterization, whether he undertook descriptions of scenery in the course of his travels, or narrated the incidents which befell him on the way. This is how he writes of his farm, and his work upon it:—"We have at length some traces of spring (6th April 1784); the primrose under the hedge begins to open her modest flower, the buds begin to swell, and the birds to build; yet we have still a wide horizon, the mountain tops resign not their snows....