- Michael (poem)
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Michael: A Pastoral Poem, written in 1800, is a one of William Wordsworth's best known poems and the subject of much critical literature. It was first published in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads. It is a pastoral poem that tells the story of the eponymous Michael, an aging shepherd, and his only child Luke.
Michael has lost half his land which he used as surety for a nephew who met with financial misfortune. When Luke reaches the age of 18, Michael sends Luke to stay with a merchant that he might learn a trade and acquire sufficient wealth to regain the land that Michael has lost. It breaks Michael's heart to send Luke away and he makes Luke lay the first stone of a sheepfold as a covenant between them that Luke will return. However, Luke is corrupted in the city and is forced to flee the country and Michael must live out his life without his son. He returns sometimes to the sheepfold but no longer has the heart to complete it.
The epigraph of George Eliot's Silas Marner is taken from the poem.
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William Wordsworth Topics Early lifePeople Lyrical Ballads Preface to the Lyrical Ballads · "Anecdote for Fathers" · "Lucy Gray" · The Lucy poems ("She dwelt among the untrodden ways", "A slumber did my spirit seal", "Strange fits of passion have I known", "Three years she grew in sun and shower") · The Matthew poems · "Michael, a Pastoral" · "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" · Tintern Abbey · We are SevenLater poetry "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" · "Elegiac Stanzas" · "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" · The Lucy poems ("I travelled among unknown men") · "London, 1802" · Ode: Intimations of Immortality · Resolution and Independence · "The Solitary Reaper" · "The World Is Too Much with Us"The Recluse This article related to a poem from the UK is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.