And he is lean, and he is sick;

His body, dwindled and awry,

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.

One prop he has, and only one :

His wife, an aged woman,

Lives with him, near the waterfall:
Upon the village Common.1

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.

His hunting feats have him bereft
Of his right eye, as you may see;
And Simon to the world is left,

In liveried poverty.

When he was young he little knew

Of husbandry or tillage;

And now is forced to work, though weak,
-The weakest in the village.

And he is lean, and he is sick,

His little body's half awry,

His ankles they are swollen and thick ;

His legs are thin and dry.

1820.

When he was young he little knew

This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;

But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer ?1

Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.2

And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,

'Tis little, very little-all3

That they can do between them.

Few months of life has he in store

As he to you will tell,

For still, the more he works, the more

Do his weak ankles swell.a

My gentle Reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,

And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.

What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:1
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,2
A stump of rotten wood.

The mattock tottered in his hand;

So vain was his endeavour,

That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.

"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.

I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,

At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.

The tears into his eyes were brought,

And thanks and praises seemed to run

So fast out of his heart, I thought

They never would have done.

-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds

With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

Comp. 1798.

Pub. 1798.

[Actually composed while I was sitting by the side of the brook that runs down from the Comb, in which stands the village of Alford, through the grounds of Alfoxden. It was a chosen resort of mine. The brook ran down a sloping rock so as to make a waterfall considerable for that county, and across the pool below had fallen a tree, an ash if I rightly remember, from which rose perpendicularly, boughs in search of the light intercepted by the deep shade above. The boughs bore leaves of green, that for want of sunshine had faded into almost lily-white; and from the underside of this natural sylvan bridge depended long and beautiful tresses of ivy, which waved gently in the breeze, that might, poetically speaking, be called the breath of the waterfall. This motion varied of course in proportion to the power of water in the brook. When, with dear friends, I revisited this spot, after an interval of more than forty years, this interesting feature of the scene was gone. To the owner of the place I could not but regret that the beauty of this retired part of the grounds had not tempted him to make it more accessible by a path, not broad or obtrusive, but sufficient for persons who love such scenes to creep along without difficulty.]

I HEARD a thousand blended notes

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,1

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure :—
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,2
Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

This Alfoxden dell, once known locally as "The Mare's Pool," was a trysting-place of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their friends. Coleridge thus describes it, in Lines addressed to Charles Lamb

The roaring dell, o'er-wooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the midday sun;

Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching-like a bridge ;—that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,

Fanned by the waterfall!

This grove is, of all the localities around Alfoxden, the one chiefly associated with Wordsworth. There is as yet no path to the waterfall,