25th October 1824

Old Shepherd Newman dyed this morning an old tenant of the fields & the last of the old shepherds the fields are now left desolate & his old haunts look like houses disinhabited the fading woods seem mourning in the autumn wind how often hath he seen the blue skye the green fields & woods & the season's changes now he sleeps unconscious of all what a desolate mystery doth it leave round the living mind the end of Gray's 'Elegy' might well be applied to this tenant of the fields—'Oft have we seen him'