Our Word of the Week, mountain, had me thinking I might do something a little different for our Poem of the Week — to recite a poem that tells a story, one that takes place in the mountains of England, among shepherds. Since I am reading Huckleberry Finn for our Friday podcast this summer, instead of our usual Poetry Aloud, Debra and I decided to open to all our subscribers this week a reading of a poem that we love, about an old man and his wife, and the son of their old age. Wordsworth’s “Michael” is the sort of thing that people used to read, and used to hear read to them. It does have to be heard, to be appreciated best.
MICHAEL
(A pastoral poem)
If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral Mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for beside that boisterous Brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation there is seen; but such
As journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude;
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that place a story appertains,
Which, though it be ungarnished with events,
Is not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first,
The earliest of those tales that spake to me
Of Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
Whom I already loved;—not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.
And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts;
And with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these Hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.For anyone who would like to read the entire poem, or follow along while listening to it read, click here.
Michael, a Pastoral Poem