That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Nor for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, both what they half create,* And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.
* This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young's, the exact expression of which I do not recollect. 1798.
If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence-wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love-oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR.
The class of Beggars to which the Old Man here described belongs will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor, and mostly old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.
[Observed, and with great benefit to my own heart, when I was a child. Written at Racedown and Alfoxden in my twenty-third year. The Political Economists were about that time beginning their war upon mendicity in all its forms, and by implication, if not directly, on alms-giving also. This heartless process has been carried as far as it can go by the AMENDED Poor Law Bill, tho' the inhumanity that prevails in this measure is somewhat disguised by the profession that one of its objects is to throw the poor upon the voluntary donations of their neighbours; that is, if rightly interpreted, to force them into a condition between relief in the Union Poor House and Alms robbed of their Christian grace and spirit, as being forced rather from the avaricious and selfish and all, in fact, but the humane and charitable are at liberty to keep all they possess from their distressed brethren.]
I SAW an aged Beggar in my walk; And he was seated by the highway side, On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road May thence remount at ease. The aged Man Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone That overlays the pile; and, from a bag All white with flour, the dole of village dames, He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one; And scanned them with a fixed and serious look Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile, Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills, He sat, and eat his food in solitude: And ever, scattered from his palsied hand, That, still attempting to prevent the waste, Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds, Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal, Approached within the length of half his staff.
Him from my childhood have I known; and then He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary Man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him.
The sauntering horseman throws not with a slack 1 And careless hand his alms upon the ground, But stops, that he may safely lodge the coin Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so, But still, when he has given his horse the rein,
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw With careless hand
Watches the aged Beggar with a look 1 Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends The toll-gate, when in summer at her door She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees The aged Beggar coming, quits her work, And lifts the latch for him that he may pass. The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake The aged Beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned 2 The old man does not change his course, the boy Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside, And passes gently by, without a curse Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary Man;
His age has no companion.
On the ground His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along, They move along the ground; and, evermore, Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale, And the blue sky, one little span of earth Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day, Bow-bent, his eyes for ever on the ground, He plies his weary journey; seeing still, And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,3 Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track, The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
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