Sat round their basket piled with oaten cakes, And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when their meal Was ended, Luke (for so the son was named) Their hands by the fire-side; perhaps to card Down from the ceiling by the chimney's edge, Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes, Living a life of eager industry. And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year, The thrifty pair had lived. For, as it chanced, And so far seen, the house itself, by all 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 dearLess from instinctive tenderness, the same Blind spirit, which is in the blood of allThan that a child, more than all other gifts, 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 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 Had work by his own door, or when he sat With sheep before him on his shepherd's stool, Beneath that large old oak, which near their door Stood, and, from its enormous breadth 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 |