The two April Mornings

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We walk’d along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun,
And Matthew stopp’d, he look’d, and said,
“The will of God be done !”

A village Schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills,
We travell’d merrily to pass
A day among the hills.

“Our work,” said I, “ was well begun;
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought ?

A second time did Matthew stop,
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top
To me he made reply.

Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

And on that slope of springing corn
The self-same crimson hue
Fell from the sky that April morn,
The same which now I view !

With rod and line my silent sport
I plied by Derwent’s wave,
And, coming to the church, stopp’d short
Beside my Daughter’s grave.

Nine summers had she scarcely seen
The pride of all the vale;
And then she sang !—she would have been
A very nightingale.

Six feet in earth my Emma lay,
And yet I lov’d her more,
For so it seem’d, than till that day
I e’er had lov’d before.

And, turning from her grave, I met
Beside the church-yard Yew
A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

A basket on her head she bare,
Her brow was smooth and white,
To see a Child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

No fountain from its rocky cave
E’er tripp’d with foot so free,
She seem’d as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;
I look’d at her and look’d again;
—And did not wish her mine.

Matthew is in his grave, yet now
Methinks I see him stand,
As at that moment, with his bough
Of wilding in his hand.

Romantic Circles