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English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

William Wordsworth

367. The Fountain

A Conversation

WE talk’d with open heart, and tongue

Affectionate and true,

A pair of friends, though I was young,

And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,

Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke

And gurgled at our feet.

‘Now, Matthew!’ said I, ‘let us match

This water’s pleasant tune

With some old border-song, or catch

That suits a summer’s noon.

‘Or of the church-clock and the chimes

Sing here beneath the shade

That half-mad thing of witty rhymes

Which you last April made!’

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed

The spring beneath the tree;

And thus the dear old man replied,

The gray-hair’d man of glee:

‘No check, no stay, this Streamlet fears,

How merrily it goes!

’Twill murmur on a thousand years

And flow as now it flows.

‘And here, on this delightful day,

I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay

Beside this fountain’s brink.

‘My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirr’d,

For the same sound is in my ears

Which in those days I heard.

‘Thus fares it still in our decay:

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what Age takes away,

Than what it leaves behind.

‘The blackbird amid leafy trees,

The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please,

Are quiet when they will.

‘With Nature never do they wage

A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age

Is beautiful and free:

‘But we are press’d by heavy laws;

And often, glad no more,

We wear a face of joy, because

We have been glad of yore.

‘If there be one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own,—

It is the man of mirth.

‘My days, my friend, are almost gone,

My life has been approved,

And many love me; but by none

Am I enough beloved.’

‘Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my idle songs

Upon these happy plains:

‘And Matthew, for thy children dead

I’ll be a son to thee!’

At this he grasp’d my hand and said,

‘Alas! that cannot be.’

We rose up from the fountain-side;

And down the smooth descent

Of the green sheep-track did we glide,

And through the wood we went;

And ere we came to Leonard’s rock

He sang those witty rhymes

About the crazy old church-clock,

And the bewilder’d chimes.