The Childless Father

Composed 1800.-Published 1800 [A]

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. When I was a child at Cockermouth, no funeral took place without a basin filled with sprigs of boxwood being placed upon a table covered with a white cloth in front of the house. The huntings on foot, in which the old man is supposed to join as here described, were of common, almost habitual, occurrence in our vales when I was a boy, and the people took much delight in them. They are now less frequent.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.

"Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away! Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds, And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."

--Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before, Filled the funeral basin [B] at Timothy's door; A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past; One Child [C] did it bear, and that Child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away! Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said; "The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead." But of this in my ears not a word did he speak; And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

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