The Shepherd went about his daily work

With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now
Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour

He to that valley took his way, and there
Wrought at the Sheep-fold. Meantime Luke began
To slacken in his duty; and at length
He in the dissolute city gave himself
To evil courses: ignominy and shame
Fell on him, so that he was driven at last
To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas.

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
'Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would break the heart:-Old Michael found it so.

I have conversed with more than one who well
Remember the Old Man, and what he was
Years after he had heard this heavy news.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks

He went, and still looked up upon

the sun,

And listened to the wind; and as before

Performed all kinds of labour for his Sheep,
And for the land his small inheritance.

And to that hollow Dell from time to time
Did he repair, to build the Fold of which
His flock had need. "Tis not forgotten yet
The pity which was then in every heart
For the Old Man-and 'tis believed by all
That many and many a day he thither went,
And never lifted up a single stone.

There, by the Sheep-fold, sometimes was he seen Sitting alone, with that his faithful Dog,

Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.

The length of full seven years from time to time He at the building of this Sheep-fold wrought, And left the work unfinished when he died.

Three years, or little more, did Isabel

Survive her Husband: at her death the estate
Was sold, and went into a Stranger's hand.

The Cottage which was named The EVENING STAR gone the ploughshare has been through the ground

On which it stood; great changes have been wrought
In all the neighbourhood:-yet the Oak is left
That grew beside their Door; and the remains
Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen
Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Gill.

APPENDIX.

See Preface, page xliii.-" by what is usually called Poetic Diction."

As perhaps I have no right to expect from a Reader of an Introduction to a volume of Poems that attentive perusal without which it is impossible, imperfectly as I have been compelled to express my meaning, that what I have said in the Preface should throughout be fully understood, I am the more anxious to give an exact notion of the sense in which I use the phrase poetic diction; and for this purpose I will here add a few words concerning the origin of the phraseology which I have condemned under that name. -The earliest

Poets of all nations generally wrote from passion

excited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men feeling powerfully as they did, their language was daring, and figurative. In succeeding times, Poets, and men ambitious of the fame of Poets, perceiving the influence of such language, and desirous of producing the same effect, without having the same animating passion, set themselves to a mechanical adoption of those figures of speech, and made use of them, sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied them to feelings and ideas with which they had no natural connec→ tion whatsoever. A language was thus insensibly produced, differing materially from the real language of men in any situation. The Reader or Hearer of this distorted language found himself in a perturbed and unusual state of mind: when affected by the genuine language of passion he had been in a perturbed and unusual state of mind also: in both cases he was willing that his common judgment and understanding should be laid asleep,