'Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away! <br />Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; <br />The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds, <br />And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.' <br /> <br />--Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, <br />On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; <br />With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, <br />The girls on the hills made a holiday show. <br /> <br />Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before, <br />Filled the funeral basin at Timothy's door; <br />A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past; <br />One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last. <br /> <br />Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, <br />The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away! <br />Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut <br />With a leisurely motion the door of his hut. <br /> <br />Perhaps to himself at that moment he said; <br />'The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead.' <br />But of this in my ears not a word did he speak; <br />And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.<br /><br />William Wordsworth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-childless-father-2/
