Alas! what idle words; but take
  The Dirge which for our Master’s sake
  And yours, love prompted me to make. 
  The rhymes so homely in attire
  With learned ears may ill agree, 30
  But chanted by your Orphan Quire
  Will make a touching melody.

  DIRGE

  Mourn, Shepherd, near thy old grey stone;
  Thou Angler, by the silent flood;
  And mourn when thou art all alone, 35
  Thou Woodman, in the distant wood!

  Thou one blind Sailor, rich in joy
  Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum;
  And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy! 
  Born deaf, and living deaf and dumb. 40

  Thou drooping sick Man, bless the Guide
  Who checked or turned thy headstrong youth,
  As he before had sanctified
  Thy infancy with heavenly truth.

  Ye Striplings, light of heart and gay, 45
  Bold settlers on some foreign shore,
  Give, when your thoughts are turned this way,
  A sigh to him whom we deplore.

  For us who here in funeral strain
  With one accord our voices raise, 50
  Let sorrow overcharged with pain
  Be lost in thankfulness and praise.

  And when our hearts shall feel a sting
  From ill we meet or good we miss,
  May touches of his memory bring 55
  Fond healing, like a mother’s kiss.

  BY THE SIDE OF THE GRAVE SOME YEARS AFTER

  Long time his pulse hath ceased to beat;
  But benefits, his gift, we trace—­
  Expressed in every eye we meet
  Round this dear Vale, his native place. 60

  To stately Hall and Cottage rude
  Flowed from his life what still they hold,
  Light pleasures, every day, renewed;
  And blessings half a century old.

  Oh true of heart, of spirit gay, 65
  Thy faults, where not already gone
  From memory, prolong their stay
  For charity’s sweet sake alone.

  Such solace find we for our loss;
  And what beyond this thought we crave 70
  Comes in the promise from the Cross,
  Shining upon thy happy grave.

To this poem, when first published in the “Poems of Early and Late Years” (1842), Wordsworth appended the note, “See, upon the subject of the three foregoing pieces, ‘The Fountain’ [p. 91], etc. etc. in the fifth volume of the Author’s Poems.”  He thus connects it with the poems referring to Matthew in such a way that it may be said to belong to that series; and, while he assigned it to the year 1798, both in the edition of 1845, and in that of 1849-50, it is quite possible that it was written in 1799.  “The village school” was the Grammar School of Hawkshead, where Wordsworth spent his boyhood; and the schoolmaster was the Rev. William Taylor, M. A., Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who was the third of the four masters who taught in it during Wordsworth’s residence there.  He was master from 1782 to 1786.  Just before his death he sent for the upper boys of the school (amongst whom was Wordsworth), and calling them into his room, took leave of them with a solemn blessing.  This farewell doubtless suggested the lines: