Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/36

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

28

And hence, so far from wanting facts or dates
To chronicle the time, we all have here
A pair of diaries, one serving, Sir,
For the whole dale, and one for each fire-side,
Yours was a stranger's judgment: for historians
Commend me to these vallies.

LEONARD.

Yet your church-yard
Seems, if such freedom may be used with you,
To say that you are heedless of the past.
Here's neither head nor foot-stone, plate of brass,
Cross-bones or skull, type of our earthly state
Or emblem of our hopes: the dead man's home
Is but a fellow to that pasture field.

PRIEST.

Why there, Sir, is a thought that's new to me.
The Stone-cutters, 'tis true, might beg their bread
If every English church-yard were like ours:

Yet your conclusion wanders from the truth.