sheepfold, see Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere 'Michael,' as 'a kind of permanent rallying point
Journals, October 11, 1800 (p. 393). Wordsworth for their domestic feelings'; he also remarked,
wrote to Thomas Poole, on April 9, 1801, that he with regret, that this class, 'small independent pro-
had attempted to picture a man 'agitated by two prietors of land,' was 'rapidly disappearing.' The
of the most powerful affections of the human subtitle shows Wordsworth's shift of the term 'pas
heart; the parental affection, and the love of prop-toral' from aristocratic make-believe to the tragic
erty, landed property, including the feelings of suffering of people in what he called 'humble and
inheritance, home, and personal and family inde-rustic life.'
pendence.' In another letter, sent, along with a 2. A ravine forming the bed of a stream. Green-
copy of the 1800 Lyrical Ballads, January 14, 1801, head Ghyll is not far from Wordsworth's cottage at
to Charles James Fox, the leader of the opposition Grasmere. The other places named in the poem are
in Parliament, Wordsworth commented in a simi-also in that vicinity.
.
MICHAEL / 293
And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.
40 Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name;
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
45 Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone; and, oftentimes,
50 When others heeded not, he heard the South0 south wind 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,
55 'The winds are now devising work for me!'
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,
60 That came to him, and left him, on the heights.
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.
65 Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed
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;
70 Which, like a book, preserved the memory
Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved,
Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts
