ness, ardour, quietness secure,[2]
And industry of body and of mind; 10
And elegant enjoyments, that are pure
As nature is;--too pure to be refined.

Here often hast Thou heard the Poet sing
In concord with his river murmuring by;
Or in some silent field, while timid spring 15
Is yet uncheered by other minstrelsy.

Who shall inherit Thee when death has[3] laid
Low in the darksome cell thine own dear lord?
That man will have a trophy, humble Spade!
A trophy nobler than a conqueror's sword.[4] 20

If he be one that feels, with skill to part
False praise from true, or, greater from the less,
Thee will he welcome to his hand and heart,
Thou monument of peaceful happiness!

He will not dread with Thee a toilsome day-- 25
Thee his loved servant, his inspiring mate![5]
And, when thou art past service, worn away,
No dull oblivious nook shall hide thy fate.[6]

His thrift thy uselessness[7] will never scorn;
An _heir-loom_ in his cottage wilt thou be:-- 30
High will he hang thee up, well pleased to adorn[8]
His rustic chimney with the last of Thee!

Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, the friend of Wordsworth and the subject of
these verses, deserves more than a passing note.

He was a man
Whom no one could have passed without remark.

One of the old race of Cumbrian "Statesmen"--men who owned, and
themselves cultivated, small bits of land (see Wordsworth's letter on
_The Brothers_ and _Michael_, vol. ii. p. 234)--he was Wordsworth's
senior by nineteen years, and lived on a patrimonial farm of about forty
acres, on the banks of the Emont,--the stream which, flowing out of
Ullswater, divides Cumberland from Westmoreland. He was a Friend, and
used to travel great distances to attend religious conferences, or
engage in philanthropic work,--on one occasion riding on his pony from
Yanwath to London, to the yearly meeting of the Friends; and, on
another, walking the 300 miles to town, in eight days, for the same
purpose. A simple, genuine nature; serene, refined, hospitable, naive,
and humorous withal; a quaint original man, with a true eye for Nature,
a keen relish for rural life (especially for gardening) and a happy
knack of characterization, whether he undertook descriptions of scenery
in the course of his trav