When others heeded not, he heard the South 50
  Make subterraneous music, like the noise
  Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills. 
  The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
  Bethought him, and he to himself would say,
  “The winds are now devising work for me!” 55
  And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives
  The traveller to a shelter, summoned him
  Up to the mountains:  he had been alone
  Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
  That came to him, and left him, on the heights. 60
  So lived he till his eightieth year was past. 
  And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
  That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
  Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts. 
  Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed 65
  The common air; hills, which with vigorous step
  He had so often climbed; which had impressed
  So many incidents upon his mind
  Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
  Which, like a book, preserved the memory 70
  Of the dumb animals whom he had saved,
  Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts
  The certainty of honorable gain;
  Those fields, those hills—­what could they less?—­had laid
  Strong hold on his affections, were to him 75
  A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
  The pleasure which there is in life itself.

  His days had not been passed in singleness. 
  His Helpmate was a comely matron, old—­
  Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80
  She was a woman of a stirring life,
  Whose heart was in her house:  two wheels she had
  Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool;
  That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest,
  It was because the other was at work. 85
  The Pair had but one inmate in their house,
  An only Child, who had been born to them
  When Michael, telling o’er his years, began
  To deem that he was old,—­in shepherd’s phrase,
  With one foot in the grave.  This only Son, 90
  With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,
  The one of an inestimable worth,
  Made all their household.  I may truly say
  That they were as a proverb in the vale
  For endless industry.  When day was gone, 95
  And from their occupations out of doors
  The Son and Father were come home, even then
  Their labor did not cease; unless when all
  Turned to the cleanly supper board, and there,
  Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk, 100
  Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes,
  And their plain home-made cheese.  Yet when the meal
  Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named)
  And his old Father both betook themselves
  To such convenient work as might employ 105
  Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card
  Wool for the Housewife’s spindle, or repair
  Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,
  Or other implement of house or field.